


Runaways

by ElsaFH (Elsa0806)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alpha Miya Atsumu, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, BAMF Hinata Shouyou, Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Gore, Crossbow, Dictatorship, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Graphic Language, Graphic Murders, Graphic Violence, Heavy Angst, Hinata Shouyou Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kinda, Knives, M/M, Marking, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Suicide, Miya Atsumu Needs a Hug, Omega Hinata Shouyou, Omegaverse, POV Hinata Shouyou, Pandemics, Panic Attacks, Pining Miya Atsumu, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Hinata Shouyou, Protective Miya Atsumu, Shooting Guns, Slow Build, Slow Burn, The angst demon made me do it, Vomiting, syringes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 67,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27988542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsa0806/pseuds/ElsaFH
Summary: When the scraps of humankind want you dead, you can only run as fast as you can. When your natural enemy runs after you, running doesn’t seem enough.And when your natural enemy turns into your best ally, the whole world will fall to its knees.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 47
Kudos: 157
Collections: Haikyuu





	Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> And!!! The crossbow fic is finally here!!! I’ve been working on this nonstop for over a month now and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.
> 
>  _Please_ be very mindful of the tags. This isn’t gonna have fluff. It’s gonna talk about dark issues and topics and there’re a few _very_ graphic descriptions. If it isn’t your cup of tea, please close the tab. You’ve been warned.
> 
> This is extremely slow burn so… yup. Without any further ado, please enjoy!!

It’s been a year since Hinata Shouyou saw another human.

At first, the sight is weird; it feels out of place and slightly dangerous. Despite being used to the infected and their general appearance, Shouyou would still choose an infected over a normal human any day. Especially since this particular human is one he knows, which means this _particular human_ is there to fetch him and make him go back to the Hospital Number Five.

Although he feels wary of the person in front of him, Shouyou knows he can’t let life follow its course; if he stays still, as his most basic instinct is screaming at him to, this human will die. And it doesn’t really matter how much Shouyou has fought against the brainwash he still has so ingrained into his being, the idea that humanity must be protected is still something he can’t get rid of. He sincerely doubts he’ll be able to, even in the future; humanity is the only thing he has left, the only thing that makes him wake up and throw himself face-first into another day in which he could die a horrible death.

He grits his teeth. He wants to intercede but the fact that the wind is carrying the smell of an Alpha holds him back; is it really his basic instinct of saving another human the one that’s kicking in? Or is it his Omega instinct of keeping an Alpha safe the one that keeps screaming at him to move?

The sun has disappeared from the sky, prompting the infected to roam the surface. Shouyou can hear them —and smell them— from all directions, the putrefaction odour oozing from them making the bile kick at the back of his throat.

He doesn’t want to throw up; he was lucky to find something to eat. He won’t let it go to waste just because his stomach was feeling a bit sensitive.

There’s an infected walking slowly towards the person Shouyou knows all too well; its arms sway side to side with each step, long fingers ending in sharp claws dragging across the dirt beneath its feet. Shouyou’s eyes are used to the oppressive darkness that covers the surface when the sun hides; his eyes are made for the night. Omegas have a few advantages over the rest of the population and one of them is having sharp senses—

The Alpha curses under his breath. His voice brings back memories of confinement and the smell of dampened concrete walls. His voice brings back memories of the constant drip of water falling from the tap of the sink, something he never managed to fix no matter how much he tried.

The Alpha’s voice brings back memories of scapegoats, excuses, and lies. Shouyou grits his teeth until his jaw feels numb; he’s not to blame for what the big fishes in the Hospital Number Five tried to do to him. No one inside of the safe zone is to blame, yet he can’t help but feel like this Alpha is somehow guilty of his current situation. Shouyou pushes himself to remember that there’s just a little group of people that know the truth, that the person in front of him is certainly not aware of the secret hidden under seven floors of a place he considered safe one day.

His train of thought crashes and burns when his eyes catch a glimpse of the long, sharp nails of the infected the Alpha is fighting against pierce his clothes and draw blood; the smell hits him across the face like a slap, coppery and metallic in a way that makes his insides churn in disgust.

Shouyou lifts the crossbow, pressing the stock against his shoulder while taking aim to the point in between the infected’s eyes. One bolt is all it takes to bring them down; to think that these creatures forced humanity underground and killed so many humans in the process that they almost made the entire species go extinct—

His finger tenses over the trigger, the air whistling through his nose when he sucks in a sharp breath.

The recoil of the crossbow makes the marrow of his bones vibrate. A few months back, when he first stepped into this new, dangerous world, the recoil left purple bruises all over his shoulder and chest, making his articulations and muscles feel resented because of the hits.

Now, as he lowers the weapon and hears the satisfactory _thump_ of the infected’s body hitting the ground, the only thing he feels is the buzzing of the adrenaline pulling through his veins. Things have changed a lot in one year alone, and truth be told, Shouyou can’t imagine going back to the safe zone. Not now that he has gotten a taste of freedom, the sweet, rich flavour coating his tongue.

The soles of his boots hit the ground beneath when he drops off of the branch he’d been sitting on. The sky is as dark as ink over his head and the smell of blood is dragged by the wind softly blowing through the trees, mixed with the slight smell of damp soil and rotten flesh.

Shouyou walks slowly towards the Alpha, attentively following his moves with a sharp stare as he lifts his hand to press it there where the nails of the infected reached him; albeit being unable to see the blood coating his fingers when he moves them away, Shouyou can still smell it. Metallic, heavy. Salty.

Lifting the crossbow once again to press the stock against his shoulder, Shouyou takes a deep inhale. This is it; the moment where his present meets his past and everything could go to shit if he isn’t careful. This Alpha is here for two reasons: one, he’s on a mission to get Shouyou back to the safe zone. Two, he’s a murderer and was punished with exile. The second reason is the most urgent one; if he _is_ a convicted murderer, that puts Shouyou’s life in immediate danger.

“Turn around _carefully,_ ” Shouyou instructs, aiming the tip of the bolt to the point in between the Alpha’s eyebrows. Or at least, where it will be when he’s finally facing Shouyou. “If you move too quickly, I will shoot.”

The Alpha’s shoulders tense upon hearing the threat; Shouyou feels satisfied when he realizes that he’s well aware that his words aren’t empty. He means every single one of them and the fact that an Alpha recognizes it, makes something akin to pride bloom in his chest.

It’s a cruel world out there, one that doesn’t care about the survival of one individual. It doesn’t care about the pain and the sorrow they go through; the world only cares about itself. And so, these new humans must learn the ways of the world they want to live in.

Shouyou’s instinct is pleading for him to take back his words. To retreat and take care of the Alpha’s wounds. To behave like an Omega should— protecting an Alpha by all means within their abilities. Shouyou, however, despises that instinct with every fibre of his being; it feels very much like the brainwash he suffered while living in the safe zone. Imposed rules he’s supposed to follow despite his desires.

He will not, by any means, be part of it. Not part of the Hospital Number Five’s brainwash and certainly not part of instincts he did not ask to have.

The Alpha obeys, turning on his heels slowly, lifting his hands with the palms turned towards Shouyou so he can see he’s not holding a weapon. The motions are deliberately slow, just like Shouyou asked, and despite being someone impatient, he pushes himself to _wait_. The Alpha is following his orders, doing what he’s asked him to without any complaints. It surprises him, reminding him that he’s not the only one that is constantly fighting his most basic instinct: most Alphas would react violently to someone else bossing them around.

This one, however, seems to have at least one functioning brain cell.

The moonlight erases the colours of the person in front of Shouyou, turning him into a silver statue that stares back at him with the eyes of a soldier. The same eyes Shouyou used to have, like mercury under the pale light of the moon.

“Hinata Shouyou-kun,” the Alpha begins, smirking. Shouyou frowns; the way the syllables of his name roll on his tongue makes him feel fidgety. “I’ve been sent to get ya back to the safe zone.”

Shouyou purses his lips, his finger tensing against the trigger of the crossbow.

“You know damn well that’s not gonna happen,” Shouyou answers. His throat feels sore and raw from those words alone; he hasn’t spoken in months. The only traces of his language seemed to reside just in his mind and memory, like a vestige of something he would never get back. It feels almost _wrong_ to produce speech amidst the darkness of the night, where he can hear the light feet of the infected grazing against the soil, their legs softly sliding in between the high grass. “Go back to the safe zone.”

The Alpha frowns. Shouyou’s eyes catch a glimpse of his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck.

“You will come with me,” he says, slowly. His voice sounds deep and rich, _so tempting_ it’s almost impossible to resist. “Put down the crossbow and follow me back to the safe zone.”

Shouyou wonders why he would refuse. The Alpha’s voice sounds compelling, prompting him to follow his orders without hesitation. It’s almost sinful, full of facts that cannot be denied under any circumstance. Some sort of axiom. Such a wonderful voice after not hearing a human speaking in so long—

_His voice._

Shouyou hisses, his lips retracting to show his teeth. The sound is guttural in his throat, vibrating through his vocal cords as he takes a step forward.

“Do that again,” he spits, “and I’ll knock you out and _hang you_ to a tree so the infected have a little feast. How does that sound, _Alpha_?”

The Alpha’s eyes glimmer with bad conceited surprise and something akin to pride stirs in Shouyou’s stomach. As far as he knows, not a lot of Omegas can resist an Alpha’s voice; it’s designed to bend their wills, to make them fulfil an Alpha’s every desire. They’re not supposed to fight it; every instinct in Shouyou screams that he should not refuse, that he should just give in. Things would be easier if he did.

He knows it isn’t true.

“Immune to the virus _and_ the voice,” the Alpha drawls on, almost pleased. The smirk pulling at the left corner of his lips looks dangerous, more dangerous than the knives attached to his thighs. “Ya hidin’ any other surprise, Shouyou-kun?”

“Yeah,” Shouyou answers, frowning. “Who gave you permission to use my given name?”

“Ah, don’t worry yer pretty little head with details,” he shoots back, smiling from ear to ear. He looks like a fox and Shouyou wants nothing but to hit his head with the stock of his crossbow. “Ya can call me Atsumu if ya like.”

“Bold of you to assume I’d like that, _Alpha_ ,” Shouyou hisses, arching his eyebrows. The smell of blood grows stronger with each second passing and the dark silver stain on the Alpha’s shirt grows bigger and bigger with every blink of the eye. “You have two options: you shut your trap and let me save _your life_ , or you keep talking and I fuck off.”

“Save my life?” the Alpha echoes, tilting his head to the right like a curious little bird. He looks dumbfounded, too surprised to form a coherent thought. His eyes follow the imaginary line drawn by Shouyou’s stare and find its end in the hole of his shirt, the bloodstain extending all too quickly for him to be so nonchalant about the whole situation. “Oh. You mean _this_.”

His fingers press against his wounds, his fingertips staining with fresh blood. His eyes are surprised when he fixes them on the blood coating the dried one as if he’s never seen it in his entire life.

“Well, fuck,” he sighs, almost resigned.

Then he passes out.

Shouyou frowns upon the sight of the Alpha’s body hitting the ground with a dull _thump_ that sounds less painful than it must have been. The smell of blood seems to become stronger when he falls face-first onto the ground, probably getting a concussion on the process; he hopes that doesn’t happen. He might know his fair share of first-aids, but he has no idea of how to treat a concussion.

With a sigh that seems to deflate his lungs completely, Shouyou puts down the crossbow, letting it hang from the strap crossed over his chest. The weapon bounces a few times against his hip before he takes a few steps forward, crouching beside the Alpha on the ground. He’s lying there, sprawled like a puppet whose strings disappeared out of the blue; it would be almost comical if Shouyou wasn’t sure that the infected wasn’t here all on its own. They never roam alone; they’re always going around in packs and _that_ makes them even harder to kill. The thought makes him grimace.

The infected are already pretty darn hard to kill; he got lucky with the one he managed to take out with just one bolt. It was mostly the fact that the creature had been too focused on the Alpha to pay attention to him.

Shouyou looks at the Alpha in front of him with an attentive stare, almost evaluative. He weighs his options, ponders if it would be a good idea to let him die here or to take him in, heal his wounds, and teach him how to survive on the surface. As he straightens his back and walks towards the fallen infected, crouching beside it to extract the bolt from its forehead —while he tries his best to ignore the putrid smell of rotten flesh and decomposed blood that oozes from the wound—, he wonders what he should do.

The answer is too simple for him to be wasting his time out here, on an open field, with the smell of blood floating around them like bait for the infected. Shouyou straightens his back, squaring his shoulders as he turns around to look at the Alpha: the man lying there, unconscious, in front of him, is as human as Shouyou himself. And he knows, deep down, that his hatred for Alphas doesn’t run as deep as the burning desire of saving humankind.

Shouyou huffs out an annoyed sigh, puffing his cheeks in a childish gesture that he’s glad no one is able to see. With a deep frown knit in between his eyebrows, he reaches out and slides his hands underneath the Alpha’s armpits, pulling to separate his dead weight from the ground.

After a few minutes of fumbling and cursing his life choices, Shouyou manages to sling the limp body over his right shoulder. His back complains immediately, almost remembering him that he’s quite small compared to any Alpha, even if his muscles are more developed than the ones of an average Omega. He winces when his shoulder throbs with a red pain that seems to stretch its fingers through his chest and his spine, a grimace settling itself over the features of his face.

“Look at me,” he hisses, starting to walk as fast as the dead weight hanging from his shoulder allows him to. His left hand is gripping the crossbow with enough strength to make his knuckles go bone-white. “Saving an Alpha’s life. Who would’ve thought.”

His voice seems to pierce the silence around him. He’s glad the infected don’t seem to be interested in him. _Yet_.

Shouyou walks for what feels like hours under the soft glow of the moon hanging over his head, the bluish light turning the world into silver and mercury. Step after step he feels the Alpha’s blood soaking his clothes, overflowing his sense of smell. The coppery-like taste seems to cover the back of his throat, making his stomach constrict in an unpleasant way that is too akin to nausea to be comfortable. He pushes through it, however, when his eyes find the demolished building he used as a shelter during his first week out of the safe zone.

The ordeal of carrying the limp body hanging on his shoulder over several shorts of stairs is one that he would rather forget. The Alpha’s weight threatens to make him lose his step so many times he actually loses count, and when he finally manages to climb to the last floor —the last floor that doesn’t seem to be about to crumble over his head, that is— he’s a panting, sweaty mess.

With a small sound of effort, Shouyou puts down the Alpha and lays his back against the concrete wall. The darkness is oppressive around him, almost like ink, and the dread and apprehension that comes from the natural fear humans developed seems to crawl up his back like spiders; he knows the infected ignore the buildings since they seem to be empty all the time —granted, they _are_ empty most of the time, except for a few animals that use them as shelter—, but the acid panic that overwhelms him, pressing at the back of his throat, is not irrational. Humans developed the fear of the darkness millennia ago, and for a _very good reason_.

He’s thankful for his sharp eyesight; it makes it easier to rummage through the Alpha’s backpack while he looks for supplies. With a hum of approval, he grips the camp lamp on the bottom of it and turns it on, squinting when the hard, pale LED light hits him straight in the face. The almost white circle is big enough for him to have enough illumination to look at his wound and do whatever he needs to do to make sure he doesn’t die of blood loss.

After setting up an improvised bed with his own blanket and his jacket, Shouyou drags the Alpha’s body into the circle of light, softly laying him down on the bed. He fights for a few seconds to take his shirt off, gasping in horror when he sees the magnitude of the wound; it’s big enough for him to be able to poke his finger through it and be able to see his fingertip on the other side— that if his fingers were long enough. The idea of having to sew the skin makes his stomach flop unpleasantly. Stitches were always his least favourite thing to do.

He does it nonetheless; using some alcohol he disinfects the needle and goes straight to his task. It takes him about one hour and a half to finish sewing the skin back together after cleaning it and getting rid of any blood, and he momentarily thinks that it would be better to just cauterize it instead of wasting time using stitches.

He can’t light up a fire here, though. That could alert the infected and he’s not in conditions to fight them, especially if he has to protect an unconscious Alpha.

Once he’s done wrapping the bandages around the Alpha’s stomach, Shouyou rummages through his bag until he finds the handcuffs he stole from one of the soldiers he knocked out when he left the safe zone. They tingle almost cheerfully as he closes them around the Alpha’s wrists, making sure that he has no space to move and try to do something that would put both their lives in danger. He sits back after retrieving the knives from the straps around Atsumu’s thighs, unbuckling them and sliding both items into his backpack before he lets out a tired sigh, admiring his handy work on the bandages. He isn’t supposed to be doing this; he should be on his way to the other safe zone, several kilometres up north. The fact that he was so close to the Hospital Number Five was just a coincidence; he had to go over his steps while looking for food since the infected made all the animals flee the zone he’d been roaming around.

His hands are stained with blood and the unpleasant sound of the needle going through _alive_ skin still makes him feel nauseated. He needs to rest as soon as possible if the way his eyelids seem to weigh tons is some sort of clue; his back hurts, as well as his feet and his fingers, and he feels dizzy and lightheaded. It feels like he’s going to puke at any given moment.

He knows he can’t sleep, though; he needs to stay awake to make sure nothing happens. It’s been ages since he had to make guard and the prospect of self-imposed insomnia doesn’t sound appealing at all.

But despite his better judgement, Shouyou falls asleep with his back against a wall and his crossbow firmly grasped between his hands.

He wakes up the next morning with a stiff neck, dried blood stuck to the wrinkles on his knuckles and the creases of his fingers, and the hunger of someone who’s just coming back to life. His stomach feels empty and the heartburn makes him grimace; it’s almost like he hasn’t eaten in days despite the fact that he ate enough to feel drowsy before finding the Alpha on the field.

His eyes dart towards the body lying a few metres in front of him: he’s fast asleep, his chest going up and down with each peaceful intake of breath. Shouyou doesn’t really know if he’s still unconscious or not, but at this point, he doesn’t feel like wondering. He feels too mentally tired for it.

However, the question as to why he decided to save an Alpha’s life keeps repeating itself over and over in his head. It feels like a loop. A whirlpool of guilt and stupidity that keeps telling him how this specific Alpha was sent to drag him back to the place where he’d be killed because of a cure that doesn’t exist. Why did he save his life? Why did he waste his first aid supplies on someone that would knock him out and carry his unconscious ass back to the Hospital Number Five at the first chance?

That’s what he was trained to do. The Alpha sleeping peacefully in front of him, snoring slightly, is as much of a killing machine as Shouyou is. He’s as trained to follow orders as Shouyou is. It doesn’t really matter that he’s handcuffed, that Shouyou made his best to restrict his movements in case he decides to use the voice again and take advantage of those short seconds Shouyou needs to fight back the burning need of _obeying_.

None of it matters. Miya Atsumu, the Alpha sent by the safe zone to hunt him down, is as much of a soldier as Shouyou is. It doesn’t really matter that they grew up together, as all the kids in the safe zone did. The fact that they all broke bones together, sweated together, got wounded together, got punished together… it doesn’t matter. None of it. Shouyou must accept this so he can build the wall that will protect him if the Alpha decides to go for the emotional manipulation route; god knows Shouyou would if he was in his position.

It’s depressing to think about all the things that don’t matter in this hell of a situation they’ve gotten themselves into. What _does_ matter, however, is the experience and the lack of it. Shouyou has been roaming the surface for a year now and has put all his training to use in the real world every day of his life since he ran away. All that training, despite being as realistic as possible, still felt like pure theory when he tried to use it to survive. And this Alpha, who has probably spent only a few days out here, lacks the necessary instincts only developed through _real_ practice.

Shouyou has way more experience than him when it comes to the outside world, but Atsumu is an Alpha. Surviving is engraved into his genes in a way that isn’t in Shouyou’s.

Atsumu stirs in his sleep, his shoulders tensing when he tries to move his hands and finds the restriction of the handcuffs around his wrists, the jingle of the chain joining his wrists together filling the empty space surrounding them.

His eyelids flutter like butterflies when he opens his eyes, a frantic stare searching around the area, falling to his hands with an almost pained expression.

“Ya handcuffed me,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse and raspy, and he winces when his throat seems to complain about the strain. He must be thirsty as all hell after losing all that blood and Shouyou would happily give him something to drink if he wasn’t so wary of his recovery. “Fuck, my _throat_.”

Shouyou purses his lips.

“Easy there,” he instructs, as deadpan as he can manage. He doesn’t really know if he wants the Alpha to recover because he’s _human_ and humans must be protected or if his Omega instinct is bugging him again. “You lost a lot of blood. You must be thirsty.”

“And hungry, but yah, ‘m thirsty,” the Alpha complains. “Got any water?”

“I do, actually,” Shouyou answers. He hugs his knees close to his chest as if he’s trying to protect himself from Atsumu’s eyes, resting his chin against his kneecaps to fix an attentive stare on the Alpha; he’s changed as much as Shouyou has over this past year. He somehow got bigger, beefier, _scarier_. His hazel eyes look sharper than before, almost like he can see things in him that he didn’t even know were there. “But first, we need to arrange some things.”

“Oh yah?” he answers, struggling to sit on the improvised bed Shouyou made for him when he dragged his agonizing ass all over the half-demolished building to find a high place that would be safe for the both of them as they waited for the sun to rise. Atsumu finally manages to sit and with a quick twist of his neck, the vertebrae of his back crack unpleasantly. “What things?”

“Look, Alpha,” Shouyou begins, sighing in resignation. The best course of action is to kill him right here and leave his body for the infected to eat it. They’ll be satiated for a few days, making it easy for Shouyou to keep travelling a bit further. “We have a situation.”

“Atsumu,” the Alpha says, loud and clear, squaring his shoulders in the same way a soldier would do in front of a superior. The gesture makes Shouyou recoil slightly. “My name’s Atsumu, not _Alpha_.”

Shouyou decides to ignore him olympically.

“You’re here to drag my ass back to the safe zone and I refuse to go back to that place. Which means it would be _very_ convenient for me if you died here. Dehydration sounds very appealing right now, since you lost more blood than I thought possible, and I’m the only source of water you can find as long as you’re wounded _and_ handcuffed.”

“Aren’t ya just a delight to have around in the mornin’,” Atsumu huffs in a whisper. He probably can’t speak any louder since his throat is still sore from dehydration. Good. Shouyou wants to keep it that way. “Yer point is?”

“My point is that I will keep you alive,” Shouyou answers, nonchalantly. The Alpha’s eyebrows arch slightly, an almost curious expression drawing itself on his features. He leans a bit forward, his hands resting relaxed over the hollow of his crisscrossed legs. “As long as you promise not to use the voice and not to try to get me back to the Hospital.”

“I could just leave ya alone, y’know?” he muses, smirking. He gives Shouyou a half-lidded stare that makes him recoil a bit more, his back pressing painfully against the concrete wall behind him. “Use ya to recover and then fuck off back home. Isn’t that a better plan, _Omega_?”

Shouyou swallows the hiss that pushes its way up his throat.

“You won’t do that.”

“Oh? Why dja say that?”

“Because you can’t go back _without_ me. You’ll never get past the barbed wires and you know it,” Shouyou shoots, a cruel smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Throwing facts at the Alpha’s face almost makes him feel physical pleasure; the wince that makes him scrunch his nose lets Shouyou know that he’s very much aware of his situation. “You either drag me back or you die. That’s how the safe zone rolls, isn’t it?”

“So yer sayin’ ya gonna let me die if I decide I don’t like yer conditions, amirite?”

He still has that one functioning brain cell by the looks of it.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

The Alpha straightens his back.

“Aren’t ya a one of a kind Omega,” he drawls on, almost pleased. “No wonder ya managed to survive this long out here.”

“I’m a trained soldier. This is _nothing_ ,” he lies, defiantly, because he doesn’t want to accept the compliment of the Alpha sent to drag him to his death.

“Oh, trust me. ’m as trained as ya are and bein’ out there wasn’t easy at all,” he giggles, smiling from ear to ear. It’s a dangerous smile, Shouyou realizes, one that doesn’t reach his sharp eyes. “How’d ya manage to find food?”

“Do you agree to my conditions or not?” Shouyou hisses. He knows what the Alpha— _Atsumu_ is trying to do: he’s trying to derail the conversation, to distract him so he can get off the hook without putting his Alpha pride in danger by making a promise he knows he won’t be able to fulfil. “Answer _now_ or I’ll leave you here to die of dehydration and starvation.”

“Ah, ya got me,” Atsumu chuckles, shrugging like Shouyou didn’t just catch him red-handed. “I don’t have any other option, do I?”

“I’d say you don’t. I’m the one who has the key to your handcuffs.”

That answer somehow feels like the final blow. Shouyou feels pretty proud of it until he notices the smirk that pulls at the right corner of Atsumu’s mouth.

“These things are nothin’, Shouyou-kun,” he hums, giving him that weird smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. A shiver goes down his back; it’s like having a knife hovering over his jugular. “I could easily break ‘em if I wanted to…”

“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“ _But_ I don’t want to,” Atsumu confirms, with that fox-like smile of his.

Shouyou’s fingers twitch, itching to lift the crossbow pressing almost painfully against his stomach and take aim at Atsumu’s head. His hands yearn for the comfort of the weapon’s weight while he’s just about to pull the trigger, yearn for the feeling of companionship it gave him all those nights he spent alone and far from his family.

“And why’s that?”

“’Cause I don’t want to die,” Atsumu answers, matter-of-factly. His answer feels almost condescending. “And by the looks of it, yer the only one who really knows how to survive out here.”

“You _do_ have one functioning brain cell, huh?”

“Oh, Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu giggles. “Ya’ve no idea.”

There’s something weird about the exchange but Shouyou can’t quite put his finger on it. It’s almost familiar; it feels like going back to those years all of them spent together while growing up. Shouyou wasn’t very close to Atsumu —or anyone, for that matter— at the time, but the atmosphere around them still feels _normal_ , almost natural. It scares him to no end because it means Atsumu will have it easy if he decides to emotionally manipulate him into going back to the safe zone.

“So,” he begins, clearing his throat. With a little sound of effort, Shouyou unfolds himself and rises to his feet, straightening his back until he hears the vertebrae popping. He doesn’t know how many hours he spent sitting in the same position, but his body seems resented nonetheless. “Does this mean you agree to my terms?”

“’Course,” Atsumu answers, following his every move with an attentive gaze. “I thought that was clear.”

Shouyou crouches and lifts up the crossbow, pressing the tip of the charged bolt to Atsumu’s forehead. The only resource he has to make sure he won’t be in a disadvantage in this situation is _intimidation_.

“If you’re lying to me, Alpha, I _will_ kill you,” he says, calmly, coldly. He wants to make sure Atsumu understands he isn’t bluffing; Shouyou is very willing to kill him on the spot if he decides that he doesn’t like the Alpha’s attitude. “I won’t hesitate. I can survive on my own, but you can’t. You need me, but I don’t need _you_. Your existence means nothing to me. Got it?”

Atsumu leans in a bit, the tip of the bolt sinking into his skin until a drop of blood slides down from the spot where the point is piercing.

“Gotcha,” he purrs.

Shouyou waits for the smell of blood to hit him again and when Atsumu leans back and it doesn’t slap him across the face, he presses his lips into a thin, pale line. He’s gotten used to the iron-like smell of it.

“So,” the Alpha begins, “ya gonna give me any of that water?”

Shouyou swallows the refusal weighing on his tongue.

“Yeah. Hold on.”

Shouyou purses his lips as his right hand moves down to his belt, his fingers wrapping around the water bottle with an unsure grip. He doesn’t feel safe in the Alpha’s presence and still, he’s using his limited resources to keep him alive while knowing all too well what his true intentions are.

Is he some sort of masochist?

He hands Atsumu the water bottle, looking at him straight in the eyes; he just smiles up at Shouyou, long fingers gripping the container before he takes it to his lips and downs all the content in one long gulp that makes Shouyou frown slightly; _that_ was the only water he had and he’d been rationing it until the moment he could reach the river. He does _not_ want to use the Alpha’s supplies if he can help it.

“Don’t worry yer pretty little head,” Atsumu says, smiling from ear to ear. It’s the dangerous smile, the one that doesn’t reach his eyes, and Shouyou’s back tenses as if sensing a threat. “I’ve got more water on my backpack.”

Shouyou hums as if to acknowledge his words; _of course_ he knows Atsumu has a water bottle filled almost to the brim. He doesn’t want to know how long he’s been out there and he _doesn’t_ want to know what he’s been doing to ration how little he has.

“I’m gonna take the handcuffs off,” he informs Atsumu once he’s given his water bottle back. Shouyou puts it back on his belt, right where it belongs, before staring attentively at the man in front of him. “If you try to do anything—”

“Yer gonna kill me. Yah, yah, I’ve heard that song a lotta times already.”

Shouyou presses his lips into a thin, pale line that does nothing to hide the fact that he’s beyond annoyed. He has no idea of what kind of image this Alpha had of him and he doesn’t know what he expects of this either, but he does know that Atsumu seems to live to piss him off.

“Y’know what,” he begins, smiling innocently. “It’s kinda tempting to leave you with the handcuffs on. Might as well try.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Atsumu whines, pouting slightly. It’s the first time Shouyou doesn’t want to deck him. “My shoulders feel _sore_. Ya really this cruel, Shouyou-kun?”

“What if I am?” he whispers, sliding his hand into his pocket to extract the key despite his words. The idea of keeping Atsumu handcuffed is extremely tempting because it grants him more control of the situation, but he also needs to recognize how dangerous it is to do something like that. If they’re in danger, he won’t be able to protect them both at the same time.

Atsumu winces when Shouyou takes the handcuffs off and instructs him to stand up so he can retrieve the blanket and the improvised pillow he made with his own jacket. He kind of knows why he’s grimacing; the perspective of standing up with a wound like that —and the stitches keeping it together— must be scary and quite uncomfortable, especially since Shouyou doesn’t know when was the last time he ate and _what_ he ate. The food produced in the safe zone contains all the nutrients an adult human being needs to subsist, but the rations they use for training, which are the ones they gave him before he left, aren’t sufficient for the strain that being out on the surface supposes. Being out there, pretending to be living on the surface, is completely different to actually be living in the surface and there’s no one who knows this better than Shouyou.

The rations are also not enough to keep a _wounded_ adult alive.

Atsumu puts on his damaged shirt, the bandages stained with a soft pink peeking through the hole the infected’s claws left on the hem. The cloth has hardened slightly because of the dried blood and Shouyou purses his lips at the image; he knows that as long as he keeps the wound clean, the dried blood won’t cause any problems. But still, he feels uneasy about the possible contamination.

“We’re washing that shirt as soon as we reach the river,” he informs, sliding his jacket and the blanket into his backpack. “Your wound might get infected if we don’t keep the area clean.”

Atsumu downs his stare, fixing it on the hole in his shirt. Sliding his index finger against the edge of the irregular perforation, he chuckles under his voice.

“I’ll be as good as new in a few days,” he says, shrugging like he doesn’t realize the condition he’s in. “Ya don’t need to worry yer pretty little head.”

Shouyou adjusts the strap attached to the crossbow over his chest while giving Atsumu a cold stare.

“I’m the one spending his first aid supplies on you. In those ‘few days’, you might get septicaemia and I will not drag your ass back to the safe zone so they can save your life because you were too damn stubborn to listen to someone who knows better,” he hisses, annoyed. “Besides, I _know_ you’re not carrying any antibiotics in that little backpack of yours.”

“Wait, ya registered my stuff?”

“Wait, you really thought I wouldn’t do that?” Shouyou shoots back, arching his eyebrows in honest disbelief. Atsumu knew he would do that, right? It was the logical course of action in that situation— he _is_ a threat to Shouyou after all. He needed to make sure there was nothing in his backpack that could hurt him, like heat accelerators or something like that. There’s nothing weaker than an Omega going into heat in a dangerous situation. “I take back what I said— you have no functioning brain cells whatsoever.”

“Excuse the life outta me for havin’ been on the brink of death by _blood loss_ ,” Atsumu huffs, as annoyed as Shouyou feels. Not for the first time after meeting him in that meadow, Shouyou has the burning need of hitting his head with the stock of his crossbow. “I didn’t have a lotta time to think ‘bout what ya’d do, y’know? I was kinda kickin’ the bucket.”

He’s right, but Shouyou doesn’t want to admit it. Shouyou also doesn’t want to admit he’s behaving exactly in the same way he was trained to do: putting strategy and results over the capacities and well-being of others. He knows Atsumu is not in conditions to move quickly, to think quickly, to _exist_ quickly like the military training they both received demands them to. It’s hard for him to remember that Atsumu isn’t used to the fast pace of the surface; he doesn’t understand how easy it is to get killed out here if one’s train of thought doesn’t catch up.

With a long, dragged sigh, Shouyou pushes out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. It feels like his lungs become smaller and smaller, like a vacuum-sealed bag.

“Okay,” he says after inhaling slowly through his nose. Atsumu’s eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead, sinking tiny wrinkles on the pale skin. “You’re right. You _were_ about to die.”

“And…?”

“And I cannot expect your only functioning brain cell to kick in so fast, okay? Satisfied?”

“Almost,” Atsumu answers, smiling wickedly. Shouyou wants to smack him once again. “But we’re makin’ progress, I guess.”

He opens his mouth to retort, probably to tell him to fuck off, but closes it a few seconds later without having said anything. It’s not worth it and he knows it; Atsumu has always been like this. Even while growing up, the signs of a hard-to-manage personality were already showing up. His twin, Osamu, a much calmer Alpha, was easier to get along with. The fact that they were separated when they turned twelve because their training would defer a little depending on their secondary gender also makes it harder to deal with him.

“Let’s get going,” he decides to say instead of the rude retort that’s weighing on his tongue. “We’re wasting sunlight.”

“Where’re we goin’?”

Atsumu’s question sounds light-hearted and almost uninterested, but Shouyou knows better. The more details and information this Alpha has about him, the easier it will be to manipulate him later on if that’s what he decides to do. Shouyou has no other choice but to let him in the dark; to make Atsumu follow him with blind eyes while trusting him wholeheartedly.

“Like I’m gonna tell you,” Shouyou huffs, rolling his eyes. His backpack is heavy on his back and the crossbow seems to weigh tons on his hip. It’s hard to tell lie after lie after being lonely for so long; it’s almost unthinkable to have to lie to the first human he’s seen in months, especially since there aren’t a lot of humans around. But he has no other choice: his hands are tied behind his back and he’s just struggling to survive in a world that wants him and his kind dead. “Let’s go.”

Atsumu asks a few more things. How many light hours there are left. How many kilometres is he planning on walking today. How are they gonna get enough food and water for the both of them. Where are they going to sleep.

Shouyou stops mid-step on the staircase and turns on the soles of his boots to look at him like he’s the stubbed toe of his existence. Is he being this annoying on purpose? Is he trying to wear Shouyou out so he surrenders and decides to go with him _just_ to shut him up?

“Do you ever shut up?” he asks, sounding as innocent as he can manage. Blinking towards him like a curious kid, Shouyou tries to stop the condescending smile that’s pulling at the corners of his lips. “Or do you want me to gag you?”

“Wow,” Atsumu sighs, arching his eyebrows. He puts his right hand over his heart in a dramatic gesture that’s somewhat ruined by the amused smirk sliding over his mouth. “That’s kinky, Shouyou-kun.”

“Careful or I might poison your food.”

“Roger that.”

The rest of the path to the first floor of the demolished building is made in silence; Shouyou feels relieved that he can finally hear the birds singing and the soft whisper of the Arakawa River running slowly to the sea. It’s a little taste of that solitude he had until the day before, something he didn’t learn to treasure as he should have. If they’d sent Osamu he’d have it easier.

The sun is almost scorching despite how early it is; it’s not even eight in the morning, judging by the angle and the length of the shadows drawn against the soil covered with an emerald green high grass that reaches Shouyou’s knees. The dewdrops are evaporating already, leaving traces of the weak smell of damp earth and chlorophyll.

Shouyou takes in a deep breath. _This_ is one of his favourite moments of the day. The transition between night and day, that specific point in time when there are still vestiges of the darkness lingering on every surface, clinging for dear life to its last seconds before the light devours it whole.

It smells like _freedom_ , the only thing Shouyou’s ever wanted. It feels, tastes, _weighs_ on him like it, and he couldn’t ask for anything else in life.

“I smell water,” Atsumu says, sniffing around. His eyes glimmer with something Shouyou can’t quite recognize, something that it’s almost precious and private. He averts his gaze and fixes it on the horizon, the point over the trees where he knows they’ll find the river. “Are we close?”

“Yeah, it’s like half an hour away,” Shouyou nods, squaring his shoulders as if sensing a threat. “We’ll get water and some food and then we’ll get going again.”

“Oh, _breakfast_ ,” Atsumu sighs dreamily. “’m so hungry I could eat an entire cow.”

“You don’t even know cows,” Shouyou snorts.

“No, but I’ve seen ‘em in books. They look _big_ enough to satiate my hunger.”

There’s nostalgia in his words, almost as if he’s longing for something neither of them ever had. Meat isn’t something they ate when they were living in the safe zone; the first time Shouyou ate meat —granted, it was a rabbit’s, but it was still _meat_ — he had a stomach ache that lasted for days and didn’t allow him to move as quickly as he’d wanted. His organism has grown used to it by now, but he’s sure Atsumu will go through the same thing he did when he started eating something else than the tasteless food produced under ultraviolet lights in one of the basements of the Hospital Number Five.

Something akin to hatred explodes in his chest; the infected took things as simple as meat from them. They took their world from them, their freedom, their hopes for a brighter future.

Shouyou grits his teeth. He wants them all _dead_ and no one’s gonna stop him from doing so himself. Humanity won’t be free as long as the infected roam the earth because he’s sure they won’t believe him when he tells them they’re all immune. The only solution is to eliminate the infected from the equation since the brainwash is working exactly like the big fishes have wanted it to for _centuries_.

Drowning himself in anger and sadness isn’t worth the waste of daylight, so he starts to walk without looking back at the Alpha. He _knows_ he’s gonna follow him because it’s either that or he dies from starvation and dehydration. Shouyou doesn’t want to admit —not even to himself— that the idea of this Alpha dying out here makes him feel sad. He’s a human after all, and humanity must be saved at all costs.

The soft grazing of Atsumu’s feet against the tall grass is the only sign Shouyou needs to let go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding. His feelings about the Alpha make him feel conflicted and confused; he knows Atsumu’s presence out here means _danger_ to him, but he also doesn’t want him to die now that he’s achieved his freedom, albeit reluctantly and completely manipulated by others into it. Atsumu didn’t want to be free like Shouyou did: he’s just following orders and as far as Shouyou knows, he’ll follow them until his last breath. It took Shouyou months after leaving the safe zone to start to get rid of the instinctive pressure of the orders the big fishes had given to him: _die for humanity, die to become the cure and save us all_. A cure that doesn’t exist and hasn’t existed for over a century, something the ones in the power are using to keep the status quo and avoid any tilt on the balance that could prompt a revolution.

Shouyou yearns to be the pebble that tilts the balance and causes the earthquake that will set humanity free from the shackles humanity itself put on it. He wants his people to be able to walk on the surface without fearing a horrible death or being terrified of turning into an infected.

“Say, Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu begins. Shouyou doesn’t stop walking and neither does he, he just glances over his shoulder towards the wounded Alpha a few steps away from him, a sly, lop-sided smile making its way to his lips. His eyes are half-lidded and he’s looking at Shouyou through his dark, long eyelashes like a fox would look at a rabbit. Shouyou doesn’t like being the rabbit in the metaphor. “Why didntcha let me die?”

Shouyou stops mid-step and turns towards him with raised eyebrows, his eyes fixing on Atsumu’s. His fingers tense at each side of his body, aching to become fists, but he uses every milligram of willpower he has to keep them as still as possible.

“Why do you wanna know?” he asks, his eyebrows knitting into a frown filled with distrust and wariness.

“’Cause ‘m curious,” is all he says, sliding his hands into the pockets of his cammo trousers.

Shouyou opens his mouth to answer, but upon trying to push the words past his lips, he discovers that he doesn’t know what to say.

“Wasn’t it more convenient to ya if I just died from blood loss?” Atsumu keeps going. He stops in front of Shouyou, a few centimetres away, invading his personal space like it’s always belonged to him. The idea that this is just an Alpha’s dominance makes a hiss whistle in Shouyou’s throat and Atsumu takes one step backwards upon hearing it— but his expression doesn’t change. It’s still the same a fox would bear while looking at its prey. “Ya talk big but yer a softie, arentcha?”

Shouyou snarls.

“You’re a human. I won’t let another human die if I can do something about it,” he snaps, looking at him defiantly. “Don’t get your hopes up— your existence still doesn’t matter to me. I will still kill you if you annoy me too much, human or not.”

“Isn’t that contradictory?” Atsumu hums, a wicked smile replacing the overconfident one he wore a few seconds ago. The outer corners of his eyes wrinkle slightly, an expression that makes a shiver go down Shouyou’s back. “What’s the difference between me dyin’ from blood loss and ya killin’ me?”

“The difference,” Shouyou starts, smiling from ear to ear. Something in his expression makes Atsumu tense as if he’s perceiving a threat, his lips twitching like he wants to show his teeth and snarl at Shouyou, “is that if you’ve died from blood loss, it wouldn’t’ve been me the one who killed you. It would’ve been an infected… and we don’t want that, now do we?”

“Ya sure yer an Omega?” Atsumu asks in a light-hearted tone that throws Shouyou off balance. “Ya behave more like an Alpha.”

“That’s none of your business,” he answers in a hiss. He’s well aware of how akin his voice sounds to a snake, but he doesn’t care. He needs this Alpha to stop sticking his nose into other people’s business. As soon as possible.

“See, the thing is,” Atsumu begins, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. He looks like he owns the place and Shouyou contains the burning need of taking a step backwards like he’s recoiling from the pure dominance oozing off of him. He hates Alphas and their pheromones— Atsumu _reeks_ of his attempt to control the situation, and Shouyou can smell the submissiveness kicking in. He abhors it. “That I wasn’t so sure ‘bout ya bein’ an Omega, y’know? Ya survived _all_ on yer own for an entire year… for what I remember, ya never stood out that much as a soldier, didntcha?”

Atsumu doesn’t know— there’s no way that he knows. From the moment their commanders separate them according to their secondary gender, the contact between the cadets is limited to the minimum. The last thing their superiors want is for them to share ideas of different social classes within the Hospital Number Five; it’s not convenient for them if the kids start to question the food chain. It could lead to a revolution. It could lead to them losing all the control they hold over the scraps of humanity left inside of those walls.

“You’ve no idea of who I am,” Shouyou says, stomping on the need of showing submission until it lies dead underneath the soles of his boots. Atsumu will _not_ intimidate him into submission and he certainly will not see him taking a step back as if he’s giving him more space to occupy. “Stop pretending you do, Alpha. I don’t care about the food chain and I do _not_ care about your mission. Don’t try to manipulate me into obeying you.”

Atsumu’s eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead, sinking deep wrinkles filled with apprehension into the pale skin. Oh, he hasn’t seen the sunlight in a long, long time. Shouyou almost feels sorry for him.

He looks like he wants to answer and Shouyou isn’t sure about wanting to hear his words. If he tries to go with the voice again, he might have to hurt him— and subsequently, _take care_ of his wounds again. Which would be a direct impact on his first aid supplies.

Why did he get into this mess again?

“’Course I’ve no idea of who ya are,” he ends up huffing, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks at the side, almost as if the image of Shouyou hurt him, his lips pressing into a pale, thin line. “We stopped seeing each other when I turned twelve. It’s been nine years.”

He sounds almost hurt. Shouyou grits his teeth.

“We didn’t talk that much before that,” he says, turning on his heels to start walking again. _Do not waste sunlight_ , his inner voice tells him. He can’t keep wasting time; they need to get to the river to get water and food with a few sunlight hours left. They still need to boil the water and cook the food. “Get going, Alpha. There’s a lot to do.”

Shouyou remembers those days; the constant pain of tired muscles, the constant speech of how they would become the saviours of the world. How humanity needed them for protection. How their mission in life was to protect, serve, _and reproduce_. It was maddening to think about it now— they were children. Small kids forced into submission and a military education none of them asked to have. In a certain way, Shouyou understood the way they grew up: the world was dangerous and they needed to be prepared.

In another way, he still despises it. They could’ve done _something_ to get the world back on track —or at least Japan, since none of them knows what’s going on outside the borders of the island— with all that training and preparation. Now, however, Shouyou knows that those hellish days of training were just an excuse to keep them busy, an excuse to turn them into soldiers without ever doing anything with the knowledge they’ve acquired.

His legs feel tired and stiff as he guides the way; the sun is hitting him right on the back of his head and he’s thankful for the turtle neck that covers most of the skin. He’s not that thankful for the lack of sleeves of his shirt; they should really walk under the shade of the trees, but it would take them more than a few hours to reach the river using that path.

“Are we close?” Atsumu asks, fifteen minutes after he spoke his last word. Shouyou doesn’t turn to look at him, he just keeps walking without taking any breaks; his legs are too used to this pace to ask them to move differently now. “’m tired as all hell.”

“Almost there,” is all he says, casting a quick glance over his shoulder. There are thick beads of sweat running down Atsumu’s face and he looks slightly pale. “You okay?”

“I think I need to sit down,” he admits.

Shouyou stops mid-step, sighing deeply. It occurs to him that he overestimated Atsumu’s strength: he lost a lot of blood and he hasn’t eaten in god knows how many hours. He shouldn’t be demanding so much from a man that was on the brink of death just a few hours ago.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks. Shouyou tries his best to not sound as hostile as he feels, albeit knowing it’s irrational to feel this way. Atsumu is slowing him down, but it isn’t his fault; it’s only Shouyou’s for deciding to bring the Alpha with him.

“Yesterday afternoon,” Atsumu answers, stopping too.

Shouyou massages his temples in circular motions as he feels a stress headache extending like red ink over his brain.

“Come with me,” he instructs. “We’ll rest for half an hour, you’re gonna eat something, and then we’ll be on our way again.”

“What ‘bout ya?” Atsumu tilts his head. He looks like a curious fox. “Arentcha gonna eat somethin’?”

Shouyou purses his lips when the idea of eating that godforsaken food takes over his mind.

“I’ll hunt something when we get to the river,” he says, shrugging. He’d rather starve for a few hours more than to make himself swallow that tasteless stuff the safe zone dares to call ‘food’. “We’ll be there in no time, I can manage.”

“Ya sayin’ I can’t?” Atsumu chuckles. He should look offended, but he only looks amused.

“In your current condition? I’m sure as hell you can’t,” Shouyou answers, giving him a smile. The first sincere smile he’s given him. “Don’t force yourself because of your Alpha pride. It won’t do you any good.”

“Aw, ya worried ‘bout me, Shouyou-kun?”

He looks too satisfied with himself to be comfortable. The smile vanishes of Shouyou’s face.

“Aaand yer back,” Atsumu jokes. “Geez, relax. ‘m not gonna eat yer face, y’know?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Shouyou huffs. “You’re here to drag me back to the safe zone, I don’t trust you, _and_ you’re annoying. You’re also slowing me down. I don’t think I can relax given the current situation.”

“’m not annoyin’, ‘m adorable.”

“Of course that’s the only thing you care about,” Shouyou huffs, rolling his eyes so hard he almost feels like they’ll pop out of their sockets. “C’mon, move. You need to rest and eat.”

Atsumu chuckles as Shouyou starts to walk directly to the edge of the leafy forest that surrounds the path they’ve been walking. The trunks are a dark brown that makes Shouyou think of those cold nights he spent outside, hugging his knees against his chest while trying to get as close to the campfire as possible. Finding firewood was a blessing when it snowed, despite the fact that he couldn’t advance too much towards his destination. He needed to store it in a dry place so he wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

Atsumu walks slowly behind him and Shouyou can smell the salt of his sweat. It’s not unnatural for him to sweat given the fact that they’ve been walking under the scorching sun for a while now, but the smell feels off nonetheless; it’s almost like it’s mixed with some strange chemical, something Shouyou doesn’t recognize but makes him feel uneasy. If they keep up this pace, Atsumu might pass out from dehydration and lack of nutrients and that would put them both in danger.

Once they reach the shade cast by the trees, Shouyou points at a fallen trunk. Atsumu’s eyes follow the imaginary line drawn from the fingertip of his index finger, a slight frown furrowing his eyebrows in the middle of his forehead. He gives Shouyou a questioning look as if he doesn’t understand what he means, but the realization seems to hit him when Shouyou squints at him.

_Are you stupid or something?_

With an exhausted sigh, Atsumu sits down and stretches his legs, letting out a small sound of effort that makes Shouyou think of a big, lazy cat. He then stretches his arms over his head, his vertebrae popping with an unpleasant sound that prompts a grimace from Shouyou.

He takes off his backpack, placing it on his lap to then rummage through it until he finds his water bottle and the rations of food the safe zone gave him before he left the secured grounds of the Hospital Number Five; it’s a vacuum-sealed silvery-plated bag with a small, white tag with the ingredients and the calories written in an even smaller font that makes Shouyou squint. He doesn’t need to read the tag to know what the bag contains; he swallows the wave of nausea that kicks at the back of his throat when the mere thought of eating that flavourless, disappointing food pops up into his head.

He sits down on the ground in front of him, crisscrossing his legs and intertwining his finger over the hollow in between his thighs. The grass is pleasantly cool and damp against his cammo trousers and he puffs out a relieved sigh.

Seeing Atsumu opening the bag and stuffing his face with the food in it pushes a chuckle past his lips. He eats with the hunger of someone who’s just coming back to life— and the comparison doesn’t seem so crazy when Shouyou thinks that yes, he would have died if he hadn’t decided to save his life. The perspective seems eerier every time he thinks about it, and the guilt of something he never did starts to crawl up his neck: even if this is an Alpha, even if he was sent to drag him back to the Hospital Number Five, Atsumu is still human. The idea of letting him all alone to die almost makes him recoil.

But what if Atsumu puts him in danger? What if he decides to drag him back despite his promise? Would Shouyou be able to abide by his own words and murder him?

“A yen for yer thoughts,” Atsumu says. His voice is slightly hoarse and it sounds muffled by the mouthful of food he’s trying to down without water. His cheeks are puffed as he chews, a small frown resting in between his eyebrows as he stares at Shouyou like he holds the secrets of the universe.

Shouyou scoffs.

“We haven’t used real money in more than a century,” he snickers, smiling slightly. He needs to admit, albeit to himself, that Atsumu is fun to be around when he’s not trying to be annoying on purpose. Or just— or just being annoying per se.

“C’mon, ya know ‘m not askin’ that. What is it?” Atsumu giggles. He sneaks around the topic, putting some soft pressure on Shouyou just to get the answer he’s looking for. He’s _good_ , but Shouyou is better. One of the few advantages of being an Omega. “Do I look that bad?”

“You kinda look like you’re gonna die in five minutes,” Shouyou sighs, shaking his head a little just to make his gesture more dramatic. Of course Atsumu doesn’t look like he’s about to die— he just looks paper-white and _tired_. It’s possible that he needs more than half an hour to rest and recover from the effects caused by the wound and blood loss. “Enjoy your last meal.”

“This is so sad,” Atsumu deadpans, swallowing the mouthful of food he’s been chewing for more than three minutes. Shouyou scrunches his face in disgust. “What? Did I grow another head or somethin’?”

“I just—” Shouyou begins, clearing his throat. He didn’t expect to be so transparent about his disgust for the safe zone’s food. “How can you eat _that_?”

“Ya ate it yer whole life, remember?” Atsumu shrugs. “Ya must remember what it’s like.”

“That’s the point… I _do_ remember.”

“Is it really that gross?”

Shouyou nods.

“Yikes,” Atsumu complains, grimacing. 

Despite himself, Shouyou can’t help the heartfelt laugh that leaves his lips. The last thing he wants is to let his guard down around Atsumu— it’s dangerous, especially since he’s an Omega and Atsumu could be manipulating him —albeit unknowingly— into getting used to him, _attached_ to him. That _is_ one of the most basic instincts of an Alpha after all: getting themselves an Omega. They don’t even need to try. They’re charming, attractive in all senses of the word. All of those things perfectly delivered by evolution like a present wrapped in a pretty paper and crowned with an even prettier bow.

Shouyou tenses slightly, the muscles of his back snapping, following the lead of the shiver that slides down his spine. Atsumu might not even be thinking about trying to lure him in, but what if he’s doing it nonetheless? What if Shouyou’s own instinct is kicking in and he’s letting his guard down as a natural response to the charms of an Alpha?

“Finish your food,” he says a few moments later. His voice sounds forced and it cracks a few times in that short sentence, almost as if his body is trying to betray him and reveal that he’s about to lose his composure. “We need to hurry so we can find shelter for the night.”

Atsumu hums in acknowledgement as he takes a long swig from his water bottle. The silvery-plated bag lays empty on his lap, crumpled and ready to be thrown into the trash.

“Ya still haven’t told me where we’re goin’,” he comments, fixing an attentive stare on Shouyou.

He shivers slightly, cursing his Omega instincts once again. He can _feel_ the need to give in, to ignore all his training and experience and put himself under Atsumu’s care. His brain is screaming at him that he will be well protected, _safe_ out here where the danger awaits crouched behind every corner and every tree.

Shouyou fights against it tooth and nail until it subdues enough for him to put on his annoyed mask and scoff sarcastically.

“As if I’m gonna tell you,” he snickers, smiling innocently. “I don’t trust you, remember?”

“Is there any chance ya get to trust me?”

The question sounds genuine. Heartfelt, almost. Shouyou is thrown off by the sheer longing that seems to fill Atsumu’s eyes as he stares at him intently, like trying to memorize the features of his face.

His fingers twitch on his lap.

“We’ll see,” is the only thing he says before looking away, avoiding the intense gaze that seems to weigh on him like a ton of bricks. It would be so easy to just trust him and ignore his objective, the one thing he’s out here for. But he can’t. He mustn’t. If he allows the most irrational part of him to take the lead, it will certainly be the end of him and the end of every possibility of freeing the Hospital Number Five from the dictatorship it’s under.

Atsumu looks extremely disappointed at his answer and Shouyou can’t help the soft chuckle that climbs its way up his throat. He looks like a kid about to throw a tantrum.

“You done?” Shouyou asks, giving Atsumu a questioning look. “We need to move.”

“Ah, yah. ‘m done.”

“Great.”

Atsumu stands up from the fallen trunk and dusts his clothes with swift motions that look almost unnecessarily elegant. Shouyou stands up too, straightening his back and stretching his legs to get rid of the unpleasant prickling of the stiffness that was starting to make his limbs go numb.

They start to walk again once Atsumu is done straightening the backpack on his back. He looks a bit better now that he’s rested and eaten, the colour going back to his face with each step he takes. This time, Shouyou walks right beside him, eyeing him almost carefully as if expecting him to drop unconscious at any given moment.

Atsumu seems to notice Shouyou’s worries; as he casts a questioning glance at him through the corner of his eyes, an almost pleased smirk curls up the left corner of his lips. Shouyou recoils slightly, swallowing the hiss that tries to go past his lips.

He _knows_ what he’s doing and Shouyou is falling right into his trap.

“Ya worried ‘bout me, Shouyou-kun?” he singsongs, arching his eyebrows.

“If you fall unconscious I’m gonna have to drag your ass to the river,” he answers. “I don’t want to do that.”

Atsumu barks out a laugh. Shouyou ignores his most basic instinct of blushing and commands the blood to _stop_ rushing to his face.

“’m gonna be okay, don’t worry,” Atsumu informs, matter-of-factly. There’s not a single doubt behind his words and Shouyou finds himself admiring the way he seems to easily ignore and get over the fact that he was about to die a few hours ago. “’m an Alpha, remember? We recover quickly.”

Shouyou snorts.

“I should’ve left you on your own, then,” he jokes, snickering. He hates it. He doesn’t want to fall into this natural, almost comfortable atmosphere; it means he’s starting to give in to his instincts, it means he’s getting dazzled by Atsumu’s charms. Gritting his teeth, he hawks to clear his throat. “I would be far away by now.”

“’m sorry for slowin’ ya down.”

Shouyou stops dead in his tracks, looking at Atsumu as if he’s finally grown that second head he commented on a few moments ago. Atsumu imitates him and stops a few steps in front of him, giving him a confused stare that makes him look like a curious fox.

His apology is _sincere_. Shouyou can smell it— it’s either that or he’s an amazing liar. However, Hinata Shouyou has the precious talent of being able to say when someone’s not telling the truth, and judging by his gut, Atsumu _is_ being sincere with him.

Why is he apologizing? Isn’t it better for him if Shouyou’s trip gets delayed and derailed? A shorter path to walk to go back to the safe zone, fewer problems to knock him unconscious, handcuff him and take him as a hostage to fulfil his mission.

“Shouyou-kun?”

He blinks a few times in Atsumu’s general direction, refusing to let his brain fall into his trap.

But what if it isn’t a trap? What if Atsumu _is_ really being sincere and Shouyou’s gut is right? What then?

“It’s nothing,” he answers, starting to walk again.

Judging by the puzzled look Atsumu gives him, he wants to ask a few questions. He does not, however. Shouyou is thankful for it. He’s not in the mood to analyse the confusion he feels because of him— it’s just his luck, isn’t it? That the first person he meets after a whole year out here being on his own is an Alpha. And one he used to know back then when things were a bit simpler and his only worries went along the lines of scraped knees and a commander that was constantly in an awful mood.

It takes them less than an hour to reach the river; it’s almost too peaceful, the soft rumour of the water running slowly towards the sea. The sun hits the tiny waves in all the right spots and angles, rainbows exploding from the edges like stars floating on the surface. It’s blindingly beautiful and Shouyou can’t help the deep inhale that makes his chest feel like it’s never gonna be big enough to hold all the air he wants to breathe in. It smells like dampen soil, chlorophyll from the water plants, a faint dash of silt on the riversides.

“I’d never—” Atsumu begins. Shouyou turns on the soles of his boots, a puzzled look fixing on the man standing a few steps behind him. He looks in awe, almost dazzled by the sight, and Shouyou can’t help the wave of something akin to tenderness that crashes through him. This is the face of a man that stands on the surface for the first time in his life. It’s the face of a man who never knew anything but concrete walls, faucets, and metaphorical shackles that kept him locked in place. He remembers the feeling of being out here for the first time— the inevitable idea that freedom tasted too good to be true. “I’d never seen a river before.”

Despite himself, Shouyou smiles.

“You’ll see a lot of things you’ve never seen before out here,” he informs, almost proud of being the one guiding him into this brand new world. “And I hope you’re a fast learner ‘cause I don’t have time to waste teaching you all the— why’re you looking at me like that?”

Atsumu is staring at him in a way he doesn’t recognize— it makes him feel fidgety and suddenly too conscious of himself. Of the way his hair looks, of the dry bloodstains on his hands and his shirt. It’s ridiculous and he knows it, but it’s almost too tempting to resist it.

He does it nonetheless because allowing Atsumu to make him feel like that means that he’s letting himself give up his territory; metaphorical or not, the idea that Atsumu is quickly invading his surroundings makes him feel on edge. It’s uncomfortable.

“Ya really love it out here, dontcha?” he asks. Shouyou startles a little, jumping on his spot upon being called out like that on his love for the outer world. It’s almost like Atsumu isn’t asking him; it’s more of an affirmation rather than a question, but he still manages to make it sound like one.

“I’m free out here,” Shouyou answers, slightly pursing his lips. He averts his gaze back to the water surface, his eyes fixing on the scales of a fish that jumps out of the river in pursuit of its prey. The drops caused by the splashing of its body diving back fall on his boots. “No one wants to kill me here, no one bosses me around. No one tries to use some… disgusting way to make me do what I don’t want to do.”

Atsumu chokes on his own spit at his words, taking the purposeful blow Shouyou just aimed at him. He didn’t expect that reaction; judging by his rather scarce knowledge on adult Alphas, they don’t usually feel bad about using the voice on the Omegas. They’re used to it— the voice is nothing but a tool to be used whenever it’s necessary. Alphas never question its use, never question the morals —or lack thereof— behind it.

Shouyou clears his throat, squaring his shoulders before turning back to him. His eyes fall on the pierced shirt covering the pink stained bandages, and as he points at the piece of clothing, he swallows the thick saliva that has gathered in the back of his throat.

“Take it off. I need to wash it.”

Atsumu chuckles.

“Ya gonna wash my clothes?” he asks, grinning at him, so full of himself that Shouyou almost thinks that he’s gonna explode. “Arentcha nice after all.”

“I’d have to change your bandages ahead of time if you get into the water, _Alpha_ ,” he hisses, annoyed. “You think it’s easy to get those things?”

Atsumu blinks, suddenly thrown off.

“Where… where dja get the first aid supplies?”

The question is logical. Shouyou still thinks it’s stupid to ask such a thing.

“Old stores, houses that aren’t too demolished to get into. Abandoned hospitals,” he explains, shrugging like it’s nothing. It feels like it’s nothing at this point, but back then when he was still getting to know this world, everything was terrifying. He couldn’t tell a safe building from a dangerous one to save his life, didn’t know where and how to look for the supplies he needed. Especially since the first five weeks out of the safe zone, he got more wounds and sprains than the ones he got throughout his entire life. “Quick, I need to hunt something so we can eat. I’m starving.”

“I offered ya some of my food,” Atsumu singsongs, his fingers gripping the edge of the collar of his shirt. He pulls up, the hem sliding on his skin until the clothing is hanging from his right hand. The blinding sunlight reveals scars marbling his skin, scars that Shouyou couldn’t see under the fake LED light that illuminated him while he took care of his wound. “But ya were too much of a spoiled kid to accept it, right?”

“The food from the safe zone is disgusting. I swore I’d never eat it again,” Shouyou retorts, taking two long strides to be able to grasp the shirt. It’s still warm from Atsumu’s body temperature, damp with his sweat. It’s almost gross when his fingers graze on the bloodstains. “Take your trousers off, too.”

“Excuse the ever-lovin’ fuck outta me?”

Shouyou arches his eyebrows.

“I said _take your trousers off_ , Alpha. You deaf or something?”

Atsumu presses his lips into a pale, thin line as he stares at Shouyou. There’s a blush creeping up his cheeks that makes him look feverish and he has to swallow down the burning need of laughing.

“Is this some sort of indecent proposal?” he asks. Oh, he’s trying to play it cool.

“No, this is me trying to keep your wound clean so you don’t die from septicaemia. Take them off, Alpha, I don’t have the whole day.” 

Atsumu’s attempt to flirt his way out of his embarrassment is futile; he’s still slightly blushed when he kneels down with a frown of pain in between his eyebrows to untie his shoes. He kicks his boots off and then Shouyou hears the telling sound of a belt being unbuckled; the sound of the zipper going down seems to pierce the sudden silence that surrounds them.

And then they’re off and Atsumu is holding them out for Shouyou to take them.

“Took you long enough,” is all he says before he snatches them off of Atsumu’s hands and folds them over his arm, along with the shirt. “Sit down. I’ll be back in a few.”

He starts to walk toward the grass-covered slope that slides down to the riverside when he stops dead in his tracks.

“Ah, yeah, I forgot.”

“Mhm?”

“I need to handcuff you,” Shouyou comments, turning around once again to look at Atsumu. He gives Shouyou an incredulous stare, arching his eyebrows with something akin to betrayal glimmering in those hazel eyes. Shouyou tries his best not to smirk, but he fails miserably. “What? Did you think I’ll trust you after a few hours?”

“I toldja I can break those easily, didn’t I?” Atsumu says while he sits down, crisscrossing his legs as he gives Shouyou a shit-eating grin. Would it be too much to drown him in the river? He’s sure Atsumu has never learned how to swim. “What’s the point?”

“Mental stability,” he retorts.

Atsumu is right; the handcuffs won’t do much good if he decides to break them. However, they’re the only thing that can keep Shouyou calmed for a while as he does whatever he needs to do in the river. He can’t allow Atsumu to get into the water since his bandages would get ruined and he would spend his first aid supplies unnecessarily and his wound might get infected. It’s also dangerous to allow him into the water since he’s not sure if Atsumu knows how to swim or not, and chances are that he tries to drown him long enough for him to go unconscious.

Why did he decide to save his life again?

“Well, ya kinky lil’ shit,” Atsumu chuckles, extending his arms with his wrists limply held together. He stays still, looking up at Shouyou through his unfairly long, thick eyelashes. “Handcuff me,” he deadpans as he winks.

Shouyou frowns.

“New rule; do _not_ wink at me. It’s weird.”

“Why? ‘m adorable, ya should feel flattered.”

The handcuffs jingle almost cheerfully as Shouyou surrounds Atsumu’s wrists with each of the single strands. The ratchet teeth creak unpleasantly as he presses them into the pawl, the short vibration of the mechanism prompting a shiver to snap down his back. He hates these things and hates the fact that they keep them safe almost as much.

“Stay here,” he orders, straightening his back. “If you try _anything_ —”

“Yah, yah, I’ll become infected’s snack. Don’t worry, ‘m aware of yer course of action.”

“Well, at least your only functioning brain cell seems to be kicking in.”

Shouyou doesn’t stop to hear Atsumu’s witty retort despite the almost burning need of doing so. _Priorities,_ he scolds himself as the soles of his boots slide down the slope. He’s done this a thousand times already; he recognizes the bumps and holes on his way down, finding balance when he moves his arms to the sides until his feet touch the demolished sidewalk-like, narrow extensions of concrete built at each side of the river.

He’s almost expecting to hear Atsumu repeating his sarcastic answer —assuming he did answer—, just loud enough for Shouyou to hear. He doesn’t do it, however, and Shouyou grins as he nails one knee to the concrete underneath his feet to untie his shoelaces.

Once he’s taken off his boots and has neatly placed them on the sidewalk-like path, he takes off his socks and lets them on top of his shoes. The concrete beneath the soles of his feet is damp and slippery, and he puts special care when he takes off the backpack, the crossbow, and the rest of his clothes. Humming underneath his breath, Shouyou jumps into the water while still holding the pieces of clothing.

The river is ice cold against his skin, prompting a shiver that would have made his teeth clack had it not been for the fact that he’s holding his breath. He resurfaces and lets go of his breath, shivering until his body gets used to the temperature.

He sighs a little, letting the water around him ease his tense muscles and wash away the traces of blood staining his skin. As soon as he starts to rub his knuckles against the bigger stains on his chest and stomach, the water around him starts to look a pale rose that seems to stand out like a sore thumb against the crystal clear liquid. The blood coils and swirls, washed away by the current.

His clothes and Atsumu’s produce almost the same effect as his own skin; as soon as he starts to rub the hem against his knuckles and squish it, the water becomes a soft red hue, pale rose as the blood starts to let go of the fibres and swirl away.

It takes him at least half an hour to be able to stop the water from becoming pink when he squishes the clothes. His fingers feel sensitive, almost raw, when he finally sighs in satisfaction: he knows there isn’t much he can do without laundry detergent, and this is the best he can manage to do until he finds some cleaning products among the things that are still left on the aisles of some demolished supermarket. On top of it, he needs to find something that isn’t spoiled— which makes it harder.

He climbs out of the water and sits on the sidewalk-like concrete path along the riverside. The fresh air feels even cooler against his wet skin, rivulets of water making their way down as they’re inexorably pulled down by gravity.

“Ya done washin’ the clothes?”

Atsumu’s voice almost startles him: he was so close to forgetting that he wasn’t alone. He was too focused on his task and the soft whisper of the river as the current softly swirled around him to remember that a deadhead had tagged along just a few hours ago.

He’s standing on the top of the slope, his handcuffed hands resting limply against his groin. The black briefs are also stained with blood, but Shouyou doesn’t dare to ask him to take them off so he can wash them. He’s _not_ that kind.

“Yup. Done,” he answers, pushing his wet hair back. The sunlight seems to prickle against the motley amount of scars that are engraved on his skin, heating up the protection choker around his neck. It’s been ages since he was almost naked in front of someone else— no one ever asked about the choker because they were all Omegas since he turned twelve. No one ever asked about his scars because there was no one there to see them. “I don’t recommend putting them on until they’re at least half dry.”

“So what do we do now?” Atsumu hums. Shouyou feels his gaze travelling across the expanse of his back. He can almost feel his eyes outlining the crescent marks that marble his skin, all of them vestiges of all the times he was too slow while fighting an infected. It’s akin to the sensation caused by feather-like fingers ghosting over his skin. “Just… wait? I thought ya were in a hurry.”

“I am,” he answers, standing up. He picks up his boots, his socks, and the rest of his belongings and climbs the slope carefully, grimacing at a small stone that digs into his left heel. “But I cannot hurry nature.”

“That was so deep,” Atsumu deadpans. “So? We’re gonna sit around and wait?”

“ _You’re_ gonna sit and wait. I’m gonna hunt us something to eat.”

“Lemme help!” Atsumu chirps, smiling from ear to ear. His stare follows Shouyou as he reaches the top of the slope and drops his boots a few steps away so they don’t slide back down. “’m a good hunter!”

“You’ve never hunted in your life,” Shouyou snorts.

Atsumu pouts.

“How can ya say that? Ya don’t know me.”

“If you had ever hunted, you’d never eat the shit they give you at the safe zone. Just sayin’.”

Shouyou’s answer seems to disarm him or throw him off enough for him to look like a petulant child who just got scolded. The duality in him makes Shouyou feel on edge, insecure as to what his response is going to be. Omegas have a natural talent —some say it’s a gift from evolution— to easily learn the patterns of behaviour of other secondary genders. These few hours Atsumu has been awake should be enough for Shouyou to understand how his mind works, how his thought process goes over things.

Needless to say, they are not. He’s still in the dark about Atsumu’s personality and he feels slightly uncomfortable and, dare he say, even interested in him.

Shouyou grimaces at the thought. He does not, under any circumstance, feel interested in any Alpha, especially one that was sent to drag him back to the safe zone. The idea that Miya Atsumu’s presence on the surface threatens his freedom and his chances to help the rest of the safe zone to get out of the dictatorship’s hold kills the interest immediately.

“Ya could always teach me how to hunt,” Atsumu suggests, shrugging one shoulder as if he doesn’t really care. The soft glimmer in his eyes, something akin to longing and hunger for knowledge, betrays his carefree tone. Shouyou frowns slightly at the soft edge of excitement that slides underneath his voice; would it be a good idea? If Atsumu learns how to hunt, it could be helpful since they’d have enough food for both of them without any of them getting too tired to move. “I mean— that’d be cool. I could help ya out.”

“And how are you gonna hunt? You don’t have any weapons on you.”

Atsumu blinks in confusion for a few seconds before he realizes that Shouyou took the knives he had attached to the straps around his thighs. The realization hits him like a rock and the offended look that he gives Shouyou prompts a satisfied grin from him; he can’t believe it took him literal hours to find out about something that important.

“Ya stole my knives!” he screeches, comically offended.

“I didn’t steal them,” Shouyou answers, shrugging. “I _confiscated_ them.”

“It’s the same damn thing, Shouyou-kun,” he whines, trying to cross his arms over his chest before he notices the resistance of the handcuffs around his wrists. Shouyou giggles. “This is unfair. I can’t believe ya stole from a dyin’ man. Have ya no shame?”

“Nah, not really. I don’t trust you, remember? How could I let you go around with weapons?”

Atsumu purses his lips; there’s a glint of something Shouyou can’t quite recognize, almost as if he’s hurt by his words. It isn’t logical, though; Atsumu _knows_ how much Shouyou would rather him not being around as he travels north. It’s not a secret that he doesn’t trust him nor is a secret how much he despises his kind. It isn’t a secret, either, how he doesn’t want to go back to the Hospital Number Five. Why does he look hurt? He’s not entitled to it.

However, Shouyou lets out a long, dragged sigh as he lifts his hands, pressing the pads of his fingers against his temples to rub soothing circles at them, trying with all his might to make the growing headache subdue by sheer willpower.

“ _Fine_ ,” he hisses, squinting at Atsumu as if he’d offended him terribly. “I will give you a few knives and I’ll teach you how to hunt. I can’t feed you for the rest of your life.”

“The rest of my life?” Atsumu echoes, blinking in confusion.

“Oh,” Shouyou sighs, his expression a mirror of Atsumu’s. “You really thought you could drag me back, didn’t you?”

Atsumu presses his lips together, averting his gaze as if caught red-handed. There’s a slight blush creeping up his cheeks, but Shouyou knows what kind of blush that is: it’s the blush of shame, one that a person would bear after getting caught with ill intentions.

Shouyou grins. He didn’t expect anything from him and thus, he doesn’t feel disappointed.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” Shouyou singsongs, smiling at him. It’s an empty smile and he can feel it; it doesn’t reach his eyes, it seems to stretch over his lips with a flavour that’s too sweet for his liking. It’s something more akin to a grimace than an actual smile and the gesture makes Atsumu recoil slightly, the soles of his feet grazing against the grass with a soft whisper that seems to drill into the silence that suddenly surrounds them. “I don’t expect anything from you.”

Each word seems to be a blow to his stomach and Shouyou’s fake smile stretches a bit more. He doesn’t even know why Atsumu looks so hurt, but truth be told, he doesn’t really care. He must not forget the reasons Atsumu has to be out here on the surface, travelling with him; he’s here to drag him back, to put him on the short path that would end with Shouyou’s death. It’s the only thing he’s aiming for.

“Let’s go hunt something to eat.”

To Shouyou’s surprise, Atsumu is quite a good hunter. He blames it on his sharp Alpha instincts and the military training; he’s especially good at following the trace left by the preys they’re following, and although he needs to learn how to be _quiet_ when moving around the forest, he still manages to nail a rabbit right in between the eyes with one of his knives.

“Wohoo!” he cheers, smiling. He drops off of the branch he got on a few minutes ago, the soles of his boots producing a deaf _thump_ when they hit the ground underneath. “Didja see that?”

Shouyou grimaces at the loud volume of his voice before following Atsumu suit, his legs vibrating when he jumps off of the branch and his feet hit the ground.

“Keep it quiet, Alpha,” he complains, frowning. “You’ll scare every prey in a two kilometres radius.”

“Oh shit, sorry,” he apologizes, scratching at the back of his neck with a bashful expression. “But isn’t this enough?”

Shouyou snorts, disbelief writing itself over his features as he blinks towards Atsumu like he’s never seen someone so _dumb_.

“’Course not,” he answers in a whisper. “One would be enough just for me… but knowing Alphas, and judging by the speed you _devoured_ that safe zone’s ration… we’re gonna need at least two more.”

Atsumu _whines_ and Shouyou swallows down the burst of laughter that presses against the back of his throat. It’s easy to forget why he’s here, despite all the effort he’s put into not doing so; Atsumu is easy to be around, contrary to the crass and jerk-like personality he had when they were children. Granted, their education took part when they had still not developed a personality on their own, but the change is nice. Pleasant, even.

“Don’t go all mopey on me,” Shouyou warns, a wicked smirk pulling at the left corner of his lips. Atsumu arches his eyebrows toward him, almost in disbelief. “If little baby Alpha cannot manage to hunt a few more rabbits, I’ll do it myself.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Atsumu’s voice is merely above a whisper, almost sultry as he takes one step forward and stands on the edge of Shouyou’s personal space. He can feel how Atsumu invades it, overwhelms his sense of smell with the fragrance that seems to ooze from the hollow under his jaw.

Shouyou grits his teeth.

“I’d challenge you,” he begins, refusing to take a step back as his instinct is screaming at him to. “But we’re not on the same level, y’know?”

Atsumu’s eyes glimmer in that weird of his, hunger and challenge mixing together, almost swirling behind hazel irises as he smirks, full of himself. Shouyou wants to smack him.

“What’re ya gonna give me if I win?” Atsumu questions, an edge of dangerous defiance sliding underneath his voice. It’s almost like it could cut him if Shouyou stands too close, but he still refuses to recoil and give up the ground he knows belongs to him.

“Nothing,” is his answer, a sunny smile linking his ears as he blinks up at Atsumu. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

There’s a frown deepening in between Atsumu’s eyebrows and Shouyou chuckles under his breath. However, his chuckling stops dead in its tracks when his ears pick up the grazing of _something_ in between the bushes, too small to be an infected, but too big to be a rabbit.

“Pick up the prey,” he instructs, his voice taking a tinge of dangerousness as he lifts up the crossbow and presses the stock against his shoulder, taking aim to the point where he heard the sound coming from, following the trajectory of the noise with the tip of the bolt. “ _Now_.”

Atsumu seems to pick up the whisper of the paws against the ground and his shoulders tense for a few seconds before he takes a few long strides towards the fallen rabbit. His fingers are quick when he reaches out and wraps them around the rabbit’s hind legs, lifting it up as his eyes roam his surroundings.

The bushes shake a little more and the head of a fox surges from between the leaves, its amber eyes looking at the dead rabbit hanging from Atsumu’s hand, the knife still stuck in between its eyes. Shouyou puts down the crossbow, slowly, as if to not startle the animal, and puffs out a relieved sigh.

“It’s okay,” he says, rolling his shoulders a little to get rid of the stiffness caused by the sudden tension of the moment. “It’s just a fox— hey, you listening to me…?”

 _Oh_.

He’d forgotten about that _tiny_ detail; Alphas tend to have problems with carnivores since their behaviour patterns are more alike than they want to admit. Territorial, dominant, _hunters_ by nature. Carnivores and Alphas don’t get along well… probably because of that thing of one not liking something or someone that’s too similar to us.

“Hey, mister carnivore,” Shouyou calls after Atsumu and the fox have spent a few too long seconds looking into each other’s eyes as if they’re ready for murder. “Cut it off. Let the poor thing be.”

“I—” Atsumu begins, frowning as if he hadn’t realized what was happening. “’m just…”

“Having a pissing contest with a wild fox?” Shouyou suggests, his finger rubbing against the trigger of the crossbow in an absentminded anxious gesture he’s acquired over these months he’s been out here. “I swear you Alphas are all a big pain in the ass. It won’t attack you if you don’t attack it first. Stop it, we’re wasting time.”

“’m not wastin’ time!” Atsumu complains, finally breaking eye contact with the animal. The fox startles because of his loud volume, wringing back in between the bushes. It runs away as fast as it can and after a few heartbeats, Shouyou isn’t able to hear its paws against the ground anymore. “I was just—”

“Being your Alpha self, yeah, yeah. Since you’re done…” Shouyou leaves the phrase delicately unfinished, letting it hang in the air between them with all the weight of its implications. Atsumu seems to understand what underlies in those words, his frown deepening slightly before he retrieves the knife from the rabbit’s head and crouches to clean the blood against the grass. “Let’s go. We still need to collect some more things for lunch.”

It takes them around one more hour to gather all the things they need for lunch, including some wood fire so they can cook the rabbits and some mushrooms Shouyou found along the way. They’re sitting on a clearing, three long branches as stakes holding the small aluminium pot over the fire; the stew simmers softly, the smell coming from the surface making Shouyou’s stomach growl as it complains about not having eaten since yesterday night.

Atsumu is sitting a few centimetres at his left, staring almost dazzled at the food slowly cooking over the campfire. It’s hard for Shouyou to remember that he’s never cooked or never seen anything cooking; food is always served ready in the safe zone —usually, some sort of mushy cereal and tasteless vegetables— and their rations are just bars of things he doesn’t want to find out what they are, packed with all the necessary nutrients for a normal human adult.

It’s almost endearing to think about all the things Atsumu is discovering in this new, cruel, and dangerous world; how to hunt, how to cook, how to collect vegetables from the forest without dying in the process. How to treat the river’s water so it’s drinkable, how to skin and strip an animal to cook it. All those things that are natural for Shouyou weren’t normal one year ago; he had to learn them by himself with the putrid breath of death grazing against the back of his neck. Atsumu is lucky someone out here can teach him those things.

“How’d ya learn all these things?” Atsumu asks after a long while in silence. His voice is slightly hoarse, probably due to dehydration. Shouyou hands him the water bottle without looking at him. “Thanks.”

“Trial and error,” he answers, shrugging. It took more errors than trials but he managed to learn, despite doing so in the hard way. He knew the basics thanks to his training; how to follow a prey, how to treat water, how to distinguish the proper wood for a campfire and one that would only produce smoke. However, out in the wild, things weren’t as easy as they made it seem inside of the safe zone. “Most of those errors caused a few stomach aches.”

“What, ya ate a raw rabbit or somethin’?” Atsumu chuckles.

“I overcooked it,” he confesses, a faint blush covering his cheeks. “But it wasn’t that what made me ill… my stomach wasn’t used to getting proteins from meat. All the proteins I consumed in the safe zone were processed into the food and after nineteen years of eating the same thing every day…”

Atsumu purses his lips; there’s worry in his expression and as Shouyou arches his eyebrows with curiosity, he waits for the answer to a question he hasn’t asked.

“Is that gonna happen to me, too?” Atsumu asks, frowning.

“Probably,” Shouyou answers, clearing his throat. _Another_ night of taking care of a deadhead. He’ll probably puke his soul out. “I don’t know if your organism works in a different way since you’re an Alpha, but… it’s expected you have some, huh— _stomach problems_.”

“Great. I have a _hole_ in my stomach and now this? Outrageous.”

“Welcome to the real world.”

Shouyou’s words don’t come out as harsh as he’d expected them to, but he discovers he doesn’t mind. Granted, Atsumu’s presence makes him feel on edge like he’s constantly waiting for him to reveal his real colours and attack him, but he also needs to make him think he’s starting to feel comfortable around him. It works both ways; it’s a constant impasse in which both of them have to give up ground so the other thinks the strategy is working. Shouyou, however, has the upper hand: Alphas work with _dominance_. Omegas work with _emotions_. If emotional manipulation is what Atsumu is striving for, he’ll have quite a hard time beating Shouyou on something that Omegas have been doing for centuries.

The idea of using such dirty resources makes him feel momentarily nauseated. He hates Alphas for the exact same thing: their behaviour towards Betas and Omegas, the constant idea that they’re superior and should be treated as such. The fact that none of them analyses the morals behind something as awful as using the voice on others, or the fact that they’ve taken advantage of the privileges they were born with.

Omegas might be the lowest in the food chain of this twisted humanity developed after the apocalypse, but they also have characteristics that Shouyou despises. The never-ending fight against his instinct of allowing himself to be protected, the fact that he can easily manipulate others through feelings and pheromones secreted in the right moment. Despite all of that, he must use his resources; the end justifies the means.

He interlocks his fingers on his lap. Is this the price to pay for a brighter future? To see all his morals, all his ideas getting stomped on by the resources he has? He doesn’t want to give up what makes him _Hinata Shouyou_ , the only thing that gives his existence meaning. Out here, without anyone to talk to, without anyone to trust, he’s the only thing he has left. Giving that up for the safety of humankind doesn’t seem like a high price— that until he actually stops to think about it.

“Shouyou-kun?”

Atsumu’s voice is soft, almost like a caress. Shouyou startles all the same.

“Yeah?” he says, clearing his throat. He blinks up at Atsumu, waiting for him to say whatever he wants to say; his thoughts are a confusing whirlpool, something he wishes he could get rid of. It’s hard to even think about getting rid of his moral principles just because he wants a better future for his mother, his sister, and him.

“Ya okay there?”

Shouyou thinks he needs to recoil; put on a mask that won’t allow his thoughts to show on his face easily enough for Atsumu to read them. Maybe turn around so he can’t see his eyes. It’s all worthless. He can smell the stress off of himself, the pheromones oozing from his pores. Telling and accusatory.

“Perfectly fine.”

If Atsumu doesn’t believe him, he doesn’t comment on it. He just stares at Shouyou, tilting his head slightly to the side as if trying to see right through him, like he wants to open his skull and witness first-hand how his brain works. Shouyou shifts uncomfortably on his spot, clearing his throat as if to avert his attention to something else.

“The food’s ready,” he announces, standing up and walking toward the simmering pot.

They eat in silence. None of them wants to speak, seemingly deep in thought, and Shouyou is thankful for the lack of nonsensical chatter. He eats with the hunger of someone who just came back to life, the scalding hot stew burning his tongue as he devours bowl after bowl until he’s satisfied.

It doesn’t surprise him to see the empty pot over the embers, softly glowing amidst the clearing. They pick up their belongings, cover the campfire with soil, and store whatever vegetables are left into Atsumu’s backpack to start walking towards the river once again; Shouyou cleans the pot, the bowls, and the spoons with some more soil and rinses them in the current, drying them against his jacket before putting them back into his backpack.

Atsumu waits at the top of the slope, looking at him attentively until he starts climbing back up again; he doesn’t say anything when Shouyou stands beside him, giving him a meaningful look before starting to walk to the north, being sure that Atsumu will follow.

Two weeks have passed since Shouyou saved Atsumu’s life; the wound in his stomach is completely healed by now and his skin has taken a soft bronze tint from his hours under the summer sun. His stomach is still a bit delicate because it’s still getting used to the food of the outer world, but his tolerance to meat and fish has improved sooner than Shouyou had expected.

He’s also developed an extremely polished sense of himself when hunting down a prey. There where he used to make noise just by walking, he’s now as silent as a wildcat as he slides in between the trees, barely shaking the bushes as he sinks into the deepest parts of the forests. Shouyou isn’t surprised at how much of a fast learner he is: his kind is supposed to be experts in hunting. However, his sense of smell, hearing, and sight are still less sharp than Shouyou’s. « _It’s evolution’s fault, don’t look at me_ » he answers, every single time Atsumu comments on it.

The answer is easy to deliver, almost a private joke between them. It feels comfortable.

Shouyou is still on edge about how comfortable he feels around Atsumu. It’s dangerous but it’s also tempting, especially when he knows that two weeks alone isn’t enough time for someone to change a lifetime of brainwash engraved into every single one of his cells. He’s probably repeated the safe zone’s motto like a mantra before going to bed every night: _protect, serve, obey, find the cure_. Shouyou is all of those things condensed into one feisty, feral Omega that won’t allow any of those things to become a reality.

Shouyou’s heat finds him during one moonless night; it’s as painful as it’s always been, especially because of the chip implanted under the skin of his neck, covered by the leather choker. It’s almost funny that the safe zone couldn’t give him a better permanent suppressor, one that would cause less pain while it kept the hormones at bay and allowed him to go on with his daily life. His entire body aches as he curls into the blanket placed on the tiled floor of something that looks like a family hospital, a small place covered in dust and spider webs. He can feel his temperature rising, the fever starting to make him feel lightheaded and nauseated. He’s _cold_ and he needs—

“Shouyou-kun?”

Atsumu’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts, dominated by sheer instinct as he curls a bit more into a ball as if trying to become as small as possible. His breathing is ragged and heavy and it seems like he’s never gonna get enough oxygen, like this moment will last forever and he will die in foetal position, overwhelmed by a scent he knows he should not enjoy.

“Stay away,” he warns, weakly. His voice comes out hoarse and almost indecipherable since it sounds more like a growl than actual words. Atsumu turns around on his blanket, placed a few metres away from Shouyou, and his eyes scan his shape. “Do _not_ come near me.”

“What’s happenin’? Ya okay— _oh_.”

He can _smell_ it. Shouyou knows this. However, he shouldn’t be able to: the permanent suppressor shouldn’t allow the pheromones to be strong enough for an Alpha to be able to detect them.

He curses the permanent suppressor given by the Hospital Number Five once again.

“Dja need anythin’?” Atsumu asks. Shouyou hears the rustling of clothes as he gets out of his improvised bed and the soft _thump_ of his naked feet against the tiled floor as he walks towards the camp lamp and turns it on. The hard LED light hurts Shouyou’s retinas, making him squint and hide his face into the blanket a bit more. “Want any water… somethin’ to eat?”

Shouyou whines. Atsumu passing right beside him on his way to the camp lamp made his scent hit him across the face, sending heat to coil at his stomach and a wave of red, hot pain crash against his body like a ton of bricks. His muscles ache, his head throbs, he’s going down with a fever—

“Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu calls. He’s crouched in front of him, a look of worry settling itself over his features as he starts to reach out towards Shouyou. His fingers stop a few centimetres away from whatever he’s able to see through the space he left so he could breathe properly; they stay suspended there, trembling slightly as if he’s burning with the desire of touching him. “Focus. Answer to me. Dja need anythin’?”

 _You_ , is the first answer that comes to his mind. He pushes it into the darkest corner of his mind, perfectly aware that this isn’t _him_ talking but his Omega instincts, potentiated by the excess of hormones injected directly into his bloodstream.

“Water,” he manages to say. His throat feels raw. “I need water.”

Atsumu hums in acknowledgement as he straightens his back, standing in all his height. His hazel eyes stay fixed on Shouyou’s frame for a while before he turns around and darts towards his backpack, rummaging through it until he finds his water bottle.

He’s back beside Shouyou in the blink of an eye, folding his body until he’s sitting on the floor, his legs crisscrossed as he leans in, reaching out with his free hand to move the blanket out of Shouyou’s head.

“Here,” he coos, putting the water bottle in front of his face. Shouyou blinks, going cross-eyed as his foggy mind tries to focus on what’s a few centimetres away from his nose. “Bottoms up.”

Shouyou frowns at him, his gaze going from Atsumu to the water bottle close to his nose. He doesn’t like the idea of being taken care of, especially because his prior heats weren’t as _painful_ as this one. Could it be because of his presence? He never got into heat with an Alpha around since they were separated by secondary gender from the average age they started to develop their reproductive processes. That’s why Alphas, Betas, and Omegas were put into groups apart when they turned twelve and that’s why every test regarding the virus was more thorough. In the eyes of the big fishes, they were fully developed and therefore were ready to serve in every sense of the word.

Despite his hunch and the general dislike of the situation, Shouyou tries his best to unwrap himself from the blanket and sit up. He hopes Atsumu doesn’t go into rut because of his own heat— the situation could get any worse if that happens; as he struggles to make his arms hold the weight of his body, he goes over all the hand-to-hand combat techniques he knows to knock someone out.

His left elbow folds when he pushes against the floor and Atsumu’s hands are quick to hold him up so he doesn’t hit his head against the tiles. Shouyou swallows down the whine that pushes up his throat; it’s the first time Atsumu touches him. He hopes it’s also the last.

Carefully, as if Shouyou is a bomb and not a very ill Omega, Atsumu helps him sit up. He’s limp in between his hands, a ragged doll with a fever that only seems to go up with every passing second.

Atsumu uncaps the water bottle and presses the finish against his lips, tilting his head back slowly, waiting for him to part his lips under the pressure. The cool liquid touches the sensitive skin and Shouyou eagerly opens his mouth, his trembling hands eagerly reaching up to hold the body and drink gulp after gulp without stopping to breathe.

The finish of the bottle disappears from his lips, a whine of complaint weighing on his tongue in a high pitch that would make him feel embarrassed in another situation. Atsumu’s eyes are fixed on him, almost intently, as he slowly shakes his head.

“Take it easy,” Atsumu advises, softly, almost like he’s speaking to a child. Shouyou wants to frown in annoyance, but he doesn’t have the strength to do it. “Ya might throw up if ya drink too fast.”

He hates that Atsumu is right; his stomach complains as soon as he stops talking like it’s trying to betray him by siding with Atsumu. Shouyou grimaces, swallowing around the lump of nausea pressing against the back of his throat, gritting his teeth at the unpleasant feeling of his stomach being upside down.

“I didn’t know Omegas’ heat was so… _disablin_ ’,” he comments, frowning slightly. Tiny wrinkles sink into the now tanned skin of his forehead and his hair looks black under the hard, pale light of the LED camp lamp. “Is it normal?”

“No,” Shouyou replies, sucking in a deep breath. The oxygen seems to work wonders with his nausea, his lungs inflating thankful for the intake of air. It feels like he’s been running for hours without ever stopping. “It’s this _damned_ permanent suppressor.”

He shouldn’t be saying those things, but he can’t bring himself to care. Permanent suppressors aren’t a secret within the walls of the safe zone: they’re standard procedure once an Omega turns twelve. Segregation by secondary gender, deeper, more thorough tests to look for the immunity, and permanent suppressors are the mark of someone being ‘fully’ ready to serve in the safe zone.

Atsumu presses his lips together into a pale, tight line filled with apprehension. He doesn’t seem to like the idea of permanent suppressors any more than Shouyou does and it’s the first time they both agree on something. Suppressors _suck_.

“Is there anythin’ I can do for ya?”

Shouyou blinks, too surprised to remember that he’s feeling like shit. Atsumu averts his gaze, blushing slightly, and the grip he holds on Shouyou’s shoulders tightens a little; not enough to hurt, but enough for him to notice the momentary trembling shaking them slightly.

His expression softens just enough to feel his face less taut; a small smile curls up the corners of his lips, amber eyes scanning Atsumu’s profile like it’s the first time he sees him. Even if this is all part of his —quite assumed, Shouyou must admit— plan to manipulate him into going back to the safe zone, he can’t help the sudden wave of affection that crashes against him.

“I’m okay, don’t worry,” he lies. Why is he lying? He’s not okay— he’s just about to puke and at the same time it feels like he hasn’t eaten in ages. His entire body _aches_ like he’s been exercising nonstop for weeks and his head is spinning in a very bad way. “Go to sleep, you’ll need to be well-rested for tomorrow.”

His throat complains about him speaking too much, but he ignores it as best as he can. It feels like this moment, this specific situation held in time, refusing to let go and crash against nothingness, is deeply meaningful. And thus, he refuses to let go of it, too. Once the morning breaks and the sun casts its light over the world, Shouyou will analyse every piece of information he’s gathered in this feverish state he’s in, he will go over every feeling that seems to pile on top of the other like a tower building itself to the sky.

For now, tomorrow doesn’t feel as important as it seemed before his fever.

“Yer a terrible liar,” Atsumu chuckles. His right hand lets go of his shoulder, the back of his knuckles brushing against the skin of his forehead, covered in a thin patina of cold sweat. Shouyou’s eyes find Atsumu’s and despite the amused smile plastered on his lips, his irises tell a completely different story; is it worry that thing Shouyou manages to see before he blinks as if trying to get rid of it? “Ya don’t have to be the tough guy all the time, y’know? It’s okay if someone else takes care of ya.”

Shouyou giggles.

“And who’s gonna take care of me? _You_?”

The sarcasm in his voice isn’t necessary and despite the hurt that makes Atsumu grimace, he doesn’t comment anything on it.

“I don’t see anyone else around willin’ to take care of yer sassy ass,” he answers, grinning. His knuckles are still pressed against Shouyou’s forehead and none of them complains or does something to stop the contact. His fingers are pleasantly cool there where they make contact with his skin and he puffs out a relieved sigh as he leans a bit into the touch. “Ya should feel flattered, y’know? Imma sacrifice my beauty sleep for ya. Yer gonna have to cook for me for an entire week.”

“I’m going into heat, not losing my sanity,” Shouyou answers, closing his eyes. Atsumu’s fingers disappear for a moment before they press on his forehead once again, this time spreading across his skin, fully resting against it. His palm is placed over Shouyou’s left eyebrow and he sighs once more, relieved for the pleasant difference in the temperature. “But you should sleep. We need to keep moving—”

“I thought ya said ya were goin’ into heat, not losin’ yer sanity?” Atsumu observes. The almost amused tinkle to his voice prompts Shouyou to open his eyes and look at him, finding a somewhat affectionate smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “We’re not movin’ tomorrow— we’re stayin’ here ‘til ya feel better.”

“We _must_ keep going,” Shouyou complains, frowning. He doesn’t want to get stuck here because of his goddamned heat. It’s worthless to wait until he feels better; it’s not the first time this happens while he’s out here and he knows how to manage himself while he’s ill like this. Granted, his heat had never been _this_ awful before, but he can still walk and hunt. “It’s not necessary for us to stop just ‘cause—”

“ _Shouyou-kun_ ,” Atsumu stops him. An edge of severity slides under his words and despite himself, Shouyou closes his mouth with the click of his teeth, positively stopping the rant he was just starting to get into. “It’s not up for discussion. Ya might’ve ignored yer body before, but yer not on yer own anymore. If I have to knock ya out so ya rest ‘til ya feel better, Imma do it. Don’t test me.”

Despite the harshness of his words, Atsumu’s voice is almost like a caress against Shouyou’s skin. Soft, light, filled with worry as he sighs in defeat, closing his eyes once again to lean in, pursuing the pleasant coolness of his fingers.

“You shouldn’t stay too close to me,” Shouyou whispers. His throat complains again, louder this time, and a whimper tries to go past his lips. He swallows it down, refusing to let such a shameful noise out. “You could go into rut.”

Atsumu hums.

“Ya should keep quiet for a while,” he instructs. “Yer throat is sore.”

“But—”

“’Sides,” Atsumu cuts him off. “I’ve got a permanent suppressor, too. Even if I go into rut, nothin’ will happen.”

Shouyou’s eyelids flutter open, amber irises fixing on soft, kind hazel ones that look at him like he’s something precious. He doesn’t trust his sense given the current situation he’s in, but he allows himself to think, just for a while, that he can trust Atsumu.

“You guys don’t…?”

He leaves the phrase unfinished, letting it hang in the air between them with all the weight of an unasked question.

“Nope,” Atsumu assents, popping the p. “We get the subcutaneous implant when we turn twelve. I’ve never gone into rut.”

It sounds inhumane; heats and ruts are natural for Omegas and Alphas, no matter how annoying Shouyou thinks they are. To deny their bodies a naturals process feels like some sort of unending torture they’ve naturalized so much they never stop to think about how much the safe zone has taken from them.

Maybe the infected didn’t just strip them from their freedom— maybe their existence showed humankind’s true colours. The obscure, nightmarish like extent they’re willing to go if the situation allows them to explore their deepest, darkest desires. Maybe the infected just were the universe’s way to tell humanity how it needed to change.

“That’s enough talkin’ for today,” Atsumu singsongs. “Try to sleep, Shouyou-kun. Yer fever’s gone ‘cause of the effort.”

He wants to argue. He does not do it.

Atsumu guides him softly, carefully, to put his head against the improvised pillow and wrap himself up in the blanket again. He tucks him into bed, thoroughly making sure there isn’t a single patch of skin exposed, humming under his breath as he goes. His fingers quickly work the wrinkles and the uncovered spots, trying to get Shouyou as comfortable as he can.

“Ya cold?” Atsumu asks. When Shouyou nods, he turns around on his spot and retrieves his own blanket, laying it on top of the one he’s already wrapped in. “Better?”

It smells like Atsumu, but Shouyou tries to ignore him. And so he nods, gritting his teeth to stop them from chattering.

“If ya need anythin’ just lemme know, ‘kay?”

He isn’t sure if he answers or not, because his eyelids are heavy and he falls asleep before he registers what’s happening, feeling warmer and safer than he’s felt in a whole year.

It takes him three days to recover from the attempted heat. He feels disgusting when he finally manages to unwrap himself from the blankets and stand up: his underwear feels sticky because of the self-lubrication and his skin reeks of pheromones that send bile to kick at the back of his throat. His hair feels caked when he runs his fingers through the locks, a grossed out grimace twisting his features.

Atsumu chuckles at the sight, sitting crisscrossed against the wall of the small clinic they spent the last days in. There are dark circles under his eyes and he looks worryingly pale, probably because he didn’t sleep while Shouyou was suffering the attempted heat, partially inhibited by the suppressor.

“Ya look like ya want to kill somethin’,” Atsumu comments. His voice is hoarse. Shouyou wonders if he’s drunk any water since he got ill. “But I’d recommend a shower first.”

“There’re no showers out here,” Shouyou answers, squinting.

“It’s just a figure of speech, Shouyou-kun,” he chuckles. “Let’s pick our things up and keep movin’, whaddaya think?”

He hums in agreement, sniffing the blankets to check if they need to be washed as well as the rest of his clothes. He isn’t surprised to find out that washing them is mandatory.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he complains, grimacing. “These things smell _awful_. Why’d you let me go three days without moving?”

Atsumu arches his eyebrows before standing up with a grunt of effort; he stretches his arms over his head, the edge of his shirt lifting a little to reveal a patch of pale skin over the waistband of his cammo trousers. Shouyou averts his gaze, ignoring the warm feeling that spreads across his cheeks.

“Ya did move, though,” he retorts, shrugging. “Ya went to the bathroom, remember?”

He snorts.

“You know what I mean.”

He intended his words to sound like a harsh complaint. Instead, they come out as a playful whine that prompts a wide smile to spread on Atsumu’s lips.

“Ya were ill. I wouldn’t’ve let ya move even if ya begged. Be thankful I didn’t handcuff ya… I could’ve gotten my sweet revenge, but I decided to be the bigger person,” he jokes. Shouyou discovers, with a sinking feeling of surprise weighing on his stomach, that he likes this new atmosphere between them, this new dynamic that seemed to develop from one day to another. He also discovers —and he tries to ignore it— that he enjoys the cheery sound of Atsumu’s voice. “See? ‘M adorable. I toldja, didn’t I?”

“A few times,” Shouyou deadpans, arching his eyebrows with a tiny amused smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “Like, a thousand, to be fair.”

“Hey now, don’t be mean.”

Shouyou presses his lips together to stop the smile from forming as he shakes his head in disbelief.

“I’m being _mean_?” he echoes in a sarcastic hum. Atsumu chuckles again and Shouyou thinks he can get used to that sound. “I literally threatened to kill you… more than once.”

Atsumu gives him a dismissive curlicue of his right hand as if to physically push the topic away from him as one would do with an annoying fly.

“Perks of the job,” he answers, a carefree smile curling up the corners of his mouth. Shouyou wants to snort but refuses to. “Let’s get goin’ to the river. God knows I need to clean myself, too.”

They pick up their belongings in a comfortable silence; it’s different to the always tense silence that used to surround them before Shouyou’s attempted heat as if that event had been an inflexion point in between them. It seemed to put everything in perspective, to prove Atsumu’s worth as a person and a comrade, and albeit Shouyou still being slightly doubtful, he decides to take a step into the void and _trust_ him. That’s what the real world is about after all. Taking risks and hoping for the best.

Once they and their clothes and blankets are clean and stretched out on several branches under the sunlight, Atsumu guides the way into the forest for their daily hunt. Shouyou’s stomach complains at the lack of food since the only thing he was able to swallow while ill was water: he feels lightheaded and tired like he could sleep for days on end. His hands tremble as he holds the crossbow and he feels unstable on his feet. It’s like he’s going to miss his step at any given moment.

Atsumu stops dead in his tracks and Shouyou bumps against him, a soft sound of complaint choking him while he frowns at him; Atsumu turns around, towering over him, giving him an attentive, almost analysing look crowned by a pensive frown that sinks tiny wrinkles into the skin of his forehead.

“Shouyou-kun?” he asks, softly, almost carefully. Shouyou hums in acknowledgement, tilting his head to the right like a curious bird. “Ya sure ya can walk this much?”

He purses his lips.

“Of course I’m sure,” he says without really being sure of it. He frowns slightly, ignoring the condescending look Atsumu gives him. “I can’t stay still for another day… I think I’ll go insane.”

“I get it, y’know?” Atsumu assents, nodding absentmindedly. It doesn’t seem like he’s uninterested on what Shouyou’s saying; it looks like he’s deep in thought, trying to come up with a solution that leaves them both satisfied. “But ya can’t force yerself. It’s bad for ya.”

Shouyou lets the crossbow hang against his hips, his arms crossing over his chest in a petulant gesture he’s well aware is childish, but he can’t help it. He’s not used to people bossing him around anymore; the thing about getting out of a grim situation, especially one that includes abuse, manipulation, control, and gaslighting, is that people react awfully when something just barely similar starts to happen again. That or they think it’s natural and get pulled into a situation just like the one they got out of.

Shouyou is the first kind. Albeit knowing that —or being ninety per cent sure— Atsumu won’t do any of those things, Shouyou’s head is wired in such a way that he rejects the orders of an Alpha on the spot.

Still, he fights the instinct, pushing against it until he’s able to hide it in the darkest corner of his mind, there where it won’t annoy him. Atsumu is being rational and he should listen to him.

Which doesn’t mean he will accept reality as easily as he would like to.

“So what, I’ll have to sit and wait around for _you_ to get the food?” he hisses, averting his gaze. _Stop being stupid_.

Atsumu, however, giggles.

“That’s kinda the idea,” he answers, shrugging. He doesn’t seem upset at Shouyou’s lack of cooperation; that’s where they differ. Atsumu is softer than Shouyou around the edges, almost like he uses _persuasion_ to accomplish his goals. Shouyou, on the other hand, learned to use intimidation and violence to get things done. He learned the hard way that the world doesn’t deliver when it’s asked things with a please attached to the petition: the world doesn’t deliver for one has to _take_ from the world. People, however, don’t work the same way the world does. “Don’t worry yer pretty little head— I’ll get us somethin’ to eat. Ya should rest… I don’t know, maybe sleep.”

Shouyou frowns; the idea is weirdly appealing despite how hot it is. However, he shakes his head and smiles at the almost accusatory frown Atsumu directs at him.

“I’m gonna be okay,” he says, shrugging. “I’ll just sit down under a tree and wait for the clothes to dry. I can get the campfire ready, too.”

Atsumu smiles now, giving him a little nod before he takes a hesitant step forward, his left hand reaching out, aimed at Shouyou’s head. He blinks up at him, confused for a moment, confused at the slight trembling of the digits hovering a few centimetres away from his head.

“I—” Atsumu begins, clearing his throat. He drops his hand to the side, never finishing what he started out of —according to Shouyou’s assumptions— sheer force of impulse. “I’m gonna get goin’. I’ll be back in a few.”

Shouyou nods his head before turning around on his heels, sneakily sharpening his ear so he can follow Atsumu’s movements as he keeps going deeper into the forest. He’s barely able to listen to the soft, almost non-existent grazing of his boots against the damp soil and the grass, and it feels like he’s vanished now that Shouyou’s eyes aren’t glued to his frame.

The sun has moved enough on the sky to cast longer shadows, the acute angles of them stretching until they’re almost indecipherable. Shouyou looks up, squinting at the sunlight as he stares at the clouds, slowly making their way across the celestial vault; he can’t help the wave of jealousy that mixes with the hunger burning in his stomach. Such a quiet, almost undeserved way of living life.

He sighs. Did the fever kill some of his brain cells or something? He isn’t used to wasting time thinking stuff like this; it’s worthless, it won’t lead him anywhere. Yet here he is, dedicating time to something he never thought possible. Maybe it’s the subconscious knowledge of not being on his own anymore finally taking a toll —for the lack of a better word— on him. Maybe he’s just allowing himself to relax since he doesn’t need to do everything now.

Shouyou sits down on a rock under the cool shade of a tree, stretching his legs to the front until his muscles tremble and his stomach feels somehow hollow, a small sound of pleasure leaving his lips. He’d forgotten how good that feels— he can’t even remember the last time he allowed himself to stop and look around, to enjoy the simplest of things. Ever since he fled the safe zone his life has been summarized to _survive_. Rise with the sun, get water, get food, cook the food, eat, save the remaining for a scarce dinner. Collect, hunt, kill every single infected that entered his visual field. Sleep. Repeat.

It’s almost a relief to have someone to do those things when he’s very well aware he can’t. He still feels wary about trusting Atsumu, but at least he can let him do these things since they’re for the benefit of the both of them.

Atsumu comes back what he thinks is forty minutes later with one rabbit and one wild chicken hanging from his right hand. His backpack looks fuller than before and Shouyou wonders, momentarily, what else he picked up in his little trip to the deepest parts of the forest. There’s a look of self-satisfaction on his face, a pleased smile stretching over his lips.

“I assume it went okay?” Shouyou asks, arching his eyebrows at the small chuckle that leaves Atsumu’s mouth upon hearing a question with such an obvious answer. “Hurry _up_ , I’m hungry.”

“Ya can’t rush perfection,” he retorts, solemnly, as he stops in front of Shouyou. He places the chicken and the rabbit down on the grass, dusting his trousers with his hands.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m rushing _you_ ,” Shouyou shoots back, grinning at him. Atsumu makes a pained expression as faux as that ‘copy’ of the Christian bible stored in the safe zone’s library, and Shouyou puffs out a snort. “What else did you bring?”

“Ah, see. _I_ ,” he begins, straightening his back. Atsumu slides his left arm out of the backpack strap, moving it until it’s pressed against his chest to pull from the zipper. He reveals a motley variety of wild vegetables— potatoes, carrots, a few herbs, and a huge amount of fruit ranging from apples to white strawberries. Shouyou’s mouth waters at the sight, “remembered some lessons and used that _sacred_ knowledge to get some sweet stuff. So? Whaddaya think? Pretty neat, ain’t it?”

Shouyou hums low in his throat before reaching out with his hands, asking Atsumu without words to hand him the backpack. He does without hesitation and Shouyou rummages through the content, whistling in pleased surprise when he doesn’t find anything potentially harming to their health.

“Looks like your brain cell made mitosis,” Shouyou jokes, chuckling under his breath. Atsumu pouts slightly and as he starts extracting the vegetables from the backpack, he snorts at the wet puppy stare he’s somehow managing to give him through his eyelashes, despite him being several centimetres taller than him. “Aw, c’mon, it was just a joke.”

“Yer a mean one, Hinata Shouyou,” Atsumu sighs, folding his body to sit cross-legged on the ground in front of Shouyou. He leans back, his hands holding up the weight of his tilted upper half, and a lazy grin pulls at the corners of his mouth. “Lemme rest for a while and I’ll get to cook.”

Shouyou frowns slightly, making a green apple roll absentmindedly in between his hands. Isn’t it too much? He went hunting and collecting and now is offering to cook for the both of them. It’s supposed to be a two persons’ task and he feels guilty for putting all the pressure on Atsumu. He owes him one— a _big_ one.

He also owes him gratitude.

“Ya look like ya wanna say somethin’,” Atsumu comments. Shouyou’s sight snaps from the apple between his hands to Atsumu’s face; there’s a bead of sweat slowly sliding down his left temple, the dark brown hair curling because of the humidity covering his skin. “Spit it out, Shouyou-kun.”

He grits his teeth, averting his gaze. He hates that Atsumu has learned how to read him so quickly, so easily, whereas he still has problems trying to learn his behavioural patterns.

“I—” he begins, clearing his throat. Atsumu arches his eyebrows, curiosity glimmering in those hazel eyes, and Shouyou can’t help but look into them a little longer than needed. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For?”

“For, huh—” he stops, gritting his teeth again. It’s hard to say it, hard to put his pride aside and be vulnerable for once in his life. This world, this cruel yet beautiful world, has taught him to be as tough as possible. It’s hard for him to express his feelings, it always has been, especially now that he’s been on his own for a long while. It feels like an eternity. “For taking care of me while I was ill.”

Atsumu blinks as if he doesn’t understand what Shouyou means.

“It was… the least I could do for ya?” he says, still confused. “Ya saved my life— I owe ya that and more.”

Oh. _Oh_. So this is just about a debt. He should’ve known— of course that’s the only reason. He feels kind of stupid when he notices the hope that has blossomed in his chest wither and die in fast forward. 

“‘Sides,” Atsumu keeps going, smiling brightly at him. He’s blindingly bright and it’s the first time Shouyou notices. “Yer important to me, even if ya don’t trust me. Ya kinda taught me how to survive in the real world, y’know? I’ll never be able to repay all the things ya’ve done for me.”

He notices the warmth on his face and realizes it’s a blush when he has the burning need of hiding his face. It’s weird— he’s never felt bashful in any Alpha’s presence, let alone Atsumu’s. It feels like their whole dynamic has changed like his attempted heat made something click in between them. Maybe it was the fact that Shouyou proved that Atsumu wouldn’t take advantage of a momentary weakness to drag him back to the Hospital Number Five, doesn’t matter if he’s not one hundred per cent sure about it. He can relax at least a little. _For now_.

He must not forget that Atsumu can betray him anytime, but he won’t deny himself the tranquillity of not being always on edge. The fact that Atsumu took care of him while he was unable to exist properly feels like something akin to a proof that he is worthy of his trust after all.

Shouyou smiles at him and Atsumu blinks a few times, surprised. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but closes it two heartbeats later without having said anything. There’s a faint blush on his cheeks and Shouyou wonders if he’s in the same situation as he is.

“Thank you, Atsumu-san,” he says, wholeheartedly. It’s the first time he says his name out loud and admittedly, he likes the way it rolls on his tongue. Almost sweet. “For taking care of me.”

Atsumu also notices it’s the first time Shouyou says his name. His lips part slightly, the blush on his cheeks becoming a deeper shade of red, and his left hand flies to his mouth, his palm pressing against it as if to hide himself from Shouyou’s stare.

“Yah,” he says, voice hoarse and raspy muffling against his hand. “Yer welcome.”

Shouyou blinks a few times before an almost evil smile spreads on his lips.

“You blushed,” he comments, just to be a little shit, just to annoy him a bit further. “Everything okay there?”

“Aw, shut up,” Atsumu whines. “Ya’ve been callin’ me ‘Alpha’ ever since we met— lemme enjoy this small step forward, wouldja?”

He giggles softly as he stretches his legs again, his right knee popping.

“We met before, though. At the safe zone.”

Although they were kids and used to have all their lessons together —Alphas, Betas, and Omegas— Shouyou really never talked to the Miya twins. Maybe once or twice, enough times to get to the conclusion that he liked Osamu better; he wasn’t as harsh, as much of a jerk as Atsumu used to be. Shouyou was, too, the only one who was able to tell them apart beside from their parents and their grandmother. He never used the knowledge, however, because he’s always felt uncomfortable around Alphas: in retrospect, he was thankful when they were separated into different groups. Dealing with the territorial, controlling Alphas at a young age was stressful enough, without taking into account the generally stressful situation of being the —assumed— last scraps left of humankind.

“I don’t think that counts,” Atsumu muses in a whisper. “We were both different back then. Ya were a scaredy-cat and I was too busy tryin’ to make my parents happy. None of us knew anythin’ better.”

Shouyou arches his eyebrows.

“And you do now?” he asks.

Atsumu gives him a meaningful look, smiling almost to himself.

“Yah, ‘course I do.”

There is something deeply endearing in Atsumu trying his best out in the wild. Shouyou has experienced that feeling so many times it still makes him feel _weird_ to be surprised when it happens. Throughout the whole month they’ve been together since Atsumu almost got killed, he’s discovered enough things about him to start feeling more pulled towards him, and less wary of his presence.

It’s a weird feeling, something he never felt before. He didn’t have many friends back at the Hospital Number Five because their lifestyle didn’t really allow them to build meaningful connections; it wasn’t convenient for the big fishes that the soldiers had friendships or relationships with other soldiers since it could mean _rebellion_. Inside of the walls of the Hospital Number Five, romantic relationships weren’t allowed and the bite —and the bond that came with it— was punished with isolation until the bond broke. As many things inside of the safe zone that was inhumane: despite murder being punished with the exile, the amount of Omegas they murdered with that punishment was off the charts.

It wasn’t strange that a couple formed by an Alpha and an Omega was born within the walls. Once their training was over at twenty-one and they were officially assigned a squad, their relationships with other secondary genders weren’t as limited as they were before. Thus, it was easy to build meaningful connections with other people and, albeit reluctantly, falling in love with someone. When the world has already ended and there is no future in sight, nothing really seems as important as some gratification.

They paid the price, however. If the superiors found the bite mark in the back of an Omega’s neck, they would be isolated —and presumably tortured— until they told them the name of the Alpha that had marked them. Once they had it… the Alpha would be forced into a lifetime of penal servitude and the Omega would be locked up in a cell. Eventually, because of the separation, the Omega’s mark disappeared and the bond itself ceased to exist through a long, tortuous, and extremely painful process. The only problem with that was the fact that the bite mark rot, thus causing the Omega to die from septicaemia.

How many of his kind had died because they dared to fall in love with an Alpha? How many Alphas were punished with forced labour and still lived on the last floor of the safe zone’s underground? How many had died from malnourishment and exhaustion?

He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to have those thoughts either, especially because the only person he can trust now is in fact an Alpha. It goes against every rational thought in his head, but it happened nonetheless; there isn’t much to do after saving each other’s life. 

The hottest days are rolling around and at this point, Shouyou is almost used to going around shirtless. He’s also almost used to seeing Atsumu in the same condition, too; he can almost count by heart the scars that mark his back, the tiny moles that seem to draw a dotted-line at the right side of his spine. The small scar of the subcutaneous implant on the back of his neck.

The big, angry scar that the infected’s claw left on his stomach. The wound healed pretty well despite having been taken care of in such a _lacking_ environment, but Shouyou still feels a bit guilty about it. Whenever he looks at the tender, paler skin, he can’t help but remember the thoughts that crossed his mind while he was stitching the hole closed. _I wish he died— that way it’d be one less problem_.

He can’t believe there was a time when he wanted Atsumu to disappear from the face of Earth. Although he had good reasons to wish for something like that, the perspective now seems impossible. Granted, he still doesn’t trust Atsumu a one hundred per cent, but he can’t imagine his life the way it was before he tagged along; hard work every day, restless nights, ignored illnesses for the sake of _surviving_ , and, above everything else, loneliness. He’d felt so, _so_ lonely, but he never realized how lonely he was until Atsumu showed up and tried to drag him back to the one place he swore to himself he’d never set foot on.

Sadly, not everything can be happiness all the time. Shouyou reencounters the harsh, dark truth one night, with the serrated teeth of an infected clamped around his left arm and its claws deeply sunk into the flesh of his shoulder.

“Shouyou-kun!”

Atsumu’s voice cracks in the honorific and the infected hisses against his arm. He can feel the vibration of the snake-like sound through his skin, his flesh, his _bones_. The teeth sunk into his arm tighten around it, fang-like while they painfully pierce his flesh. The infected’s eyes are almost pure black, like a void, except for a thin white line around the eternally widened pupils. Whatever is left of the sclera is injected in a deep dark, almost black, blood that makes the eyes look even darker underneath the pale moonlight.

“Stay where you are!” Shouyou growls, momentarily gazing at Atsumu through the corner of his eyes. He’s standing in front of the door of something that looks like a house, demolished by the passing of time, eroded by the rain, the wind, and the sun. The wooden door hangs from the hinges, half-rotten and broken in some places, especially around the oxide-covered handle. “Do _not_ come near.”

Shouyou is thankful for having been the one who stepped first into the demolished house. The infected was hiding behind the almost intact stairs that lead to the second floor and he wasn’t fast enough to kill it before it charged forward, its teeth aimed directly at Shouyou’s neck.

He was fast enough to intercept what looked like a deadly bite with his arm. It hurts like a _bitch_ , the acid-like saliva burning into his flesh and his skin. He hisses under his breath when the infected tries to straighten its back and stand in its full two metres height. Shouyou snarls at the creature, a wave of nausea kicking at the back of his throat when the putrid smell of its rotten flesh hits him across the face like a slap.

Its pale skin seems to shine softly under the moonlight, stretched like leather over the elongated bones that are twice the length of a normal human’s. It’s basically bones and skin walking around, long spurs stretching from its elbows and its heels. The claws that are basically the first phalanx of each finger, elongated until it broke the skin, seem to be designed to tear the flesh apart from the bones of its prey.

Its face is almost like a skull covered with leather-like skin, sharp cheekbones pressing against it, threatening to cut it to surface. The lack of body hair and body fat makes the infected look like some twisted creature that came out of the imagination of a horror writer; walking skeletons, covered in skin that stretched to the point of being easily slit.

The claws sank into his right shoulder tighten and Shouyou whimpers. He’s fought these creatures enough that the sight of them should be natural, as well as the superhuman speed at which they move.

“You enjoying the taste?” Shouyou snarls at the creature. It feels like it’s _chewing_ on his arm and he wants nothing but to pull his limb from the clamp of its teeth. He knows he can’t, however; if he does, the infected will attack Atsumu. He already called its attention and it seems deeply interested in him judging by the almost yearning stare it directs at him with those void-like eyes of its. “I hope you like it, you disgusting piece of rotten _flesh_.”

His right hand quickly removes one of the bolts from the quiver of his crossbow. He’s even quicker when he sinks the bolt in between the infected’s eyes, gagging at the putrid smell of the blood that slides down from the point where the bolt is piercing both skin and bone. He can almost _feel_ the brain of the thing tearing apart by the improvised weapon.

The infected hisses against his arm almost like it’s fighting its imminent death. Its claws tremble against the flesh of his shoulder and a deep hiss vibrates through Shouyou’s limb and up his upper half, into the marrow of his bones, before the sound stops and the infected’s body goes limp, crashing against Shouyou and hanging like a ragdoll from his arm and his shoulder.

There’s bile in the back of his throat and he tries his best not to puke. Slowly, as if fearing the pain it will cause, Shouyou grips the infected’s wrist and _pulls_ until its claws slide out of his shoulder. He hisses at the red, hot pain that extends its fingers through his body, tears prickling in his eyes.

“Atsumu-san,” he calls, turning slightly to fix his eyes on him. He looks unhealthily pale and is covering his mouth with his right hand like he’s trying not to throw up. Shouyou relates. “Can you hand me one of your knives? These damn things go into rigour mortis as soon as their hearts stop.”

Atsumu nods before taking a few hesitant steps towards him, his hand slowly moving to the strap around his thigh to extract one of his knives. Once he’s reached Shouyou’s position, he extends the weapon with trembling fingers, his eyes fixed on the grotesque figure leaning dead against him.

“Thanks,” he says, pretending his shoulder and arm don’t hurt like a bitch. He slides the tip in between his skin and the infected’s mouth, pressing the edge against the skin around the teeth. He manages to cut it with the unpleasant sound of leather being rip, black, almost coagulated blood slowly oozing from the cut. He repeats the process with the other side, gagging at the smell.

“Ya need any help?” Atsumu asks in a whisper. He’s trying his best not to puke and Shouyou feels sorry for him. The image must be disturbing.

“I’m fine,” he lies, smiling at him. “I need to break its jaw— if you touch its teeth and get hurt, you might get infected.”

He’s lying through his teeth.

“Oh. ‘Kay.”

The bone produces an awful _crack_ when Shouyou presses his fingers against its lower teeth and pushes down. Its jaw hangs from the pieces of skin still intact, and Shouyou finally pulls his arm out of the iron-like hold the infected had on him.

He’s bleeding profusely from both his arm and his shoulder, and he grimaces at the sight of the wound. The infected _was_ chewing on him. It bit so deep in those last seconds that it seemed to have damaged the nerves. That or the adrenaline finally anaesthetized the spot.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Atsumu curses in a hiss. “That looks _awful_.”

Despite himself, Shouyou chuckles.

“I’ve had it worse.”

Atsumu frowns in disbelief, giving him the side-eye as he reaches out and his fingers press lightly against his wounded arm. He moves closer, leaning in to get a better look at the chewed-on flesh.

“I’ve no idea of how to treat this,” he says. He sounds desperate and ashamed and Shouyou feels a wave of affection crash against him.

“I can teach you how,” Shouyou offers, shrugging his good shoulder. “It’s not that hard— _Atsumu-san!_ ”

He hears the hisses before he sees them. A whole pack of infected running towards them, claws and fangs ready to chew them to death. He starts to move, trying to put Atsumu behind him while gripping the crossbow, but a spur surges from the front of his shirt. He realizes all too late that the spur is going through his stomach.

Shouyou wakes up with his wrists tied together by something he recognizes instantly; his own handcuffs are keeping his hands from moving freely and there’s a chain with a padlock tied to his ankle.

He blinks into the white, hard light coming from the LED camp light placed a few metres away from him. The skin of his stomach feels uncomfortably taut, almost like leather, and he winces when his muscles tense upon the effort of sitting to get a better look at his surroundings. His right shoulder complains, too, and his left arm feels too hot to be healthy. Quick flashes of memories pass in front of his eyes, reminding him that he got _bitten_ and _pierced_ in the short span of ten minutes.

There’s a click that he recognizes all too well coming from the dark place the light of the lamp cannot reach— Shouyou’s back tenses upon realizing the click is the mechanism of his crossbow while being charged. Someone is pointing his own weapon at him.

“Well,” he begins. His throat feels constricted and bone-dry; grimacing at the sand-like feeling, Shouyou coughs to clear his voice. “Isn’t this a surprise.”

He recognizes the sound the trigger makes when someone tenses their finger against it.

Atsumu comes into the circle of light to reveal his blood-stained shirt, his ripped cammo trousers, and the many cuts that make his face look like a world map of dried blood and purple bruises. There’s a bandage around his right arm, slightly stained with pink.

“I assume you saved my life,” Shouyou says, carefully. His voice comes out raspy and low, the dehydration hurting his throat every time he tries to speak. It’s awfully akin to that time he saved Atsumu’s life. He doesn’t understand the situation, however— is this it? Is this the moment Atsumu reveals his true purpose and tries to drag him back to the safe zone? “Why’re you pointing my weapon at me after saving my life?”

“What arentcha tellin’ me?” Atsumu asks, ignoring Shouyou’s question. He frowns, confused at his words, but says nothing. “Why didn’t I turn into an infected?”

Shouyou’s gaze fixes on the bandage around his arm. He got _bitten_. Shouyou looked away five seconds and managed to almost get killed and Atsumu got bitten because of it. He curses under his breath. The cat is out of the bag and he needs to think quickly if he wants to keep Atsumu in the dark like he’s been doing for a month now.

“Maybe you’re immune like me,” he lies, looking at Atsumu straight in the eyes. He will keep the lie for as long as he can, but he can already feel it crumbling in between his fingers like a sandcastle.

“That’s impossible,” Atsumu snarls at him, his lips retracting to show sharp fangs that glow like pearls under the unnatural light of the lamp. “Yer the only one that’s immune to the virus. We all know it.”

Shouyou curses under his breath again. Of course the big fishes spread the word among the population of the Hospital Number Five. It was only logical for them to turn Shouyou into a public scapegoat if they wanted their plan to work. They needed to make him look like the only thing that could save humankind. He’s probably seen as a traitor amongst his peers now, too.

“Who knows? Maybe they didn’t run the tests correctly.”

“Yer lyin’.”

“I’m not, Atsumu-san. I’m—”

_Lying through my teeth, with my entire chest. But you don’t need to know that._

“Stop lyin’ to me and tell me the fuckin’ truth!” Atsumu shouts. The bolt shot by the crossbow passes a few millimetres away from Shouyou’s ear and he swallows the thick saliva that’s gathered in the back of his throat. He didn’t think Atsumu would shoot— he didn’t think their roles would reverse like this. He was supposed to be in charge at all times and he doesn’t like being the one handcuffed with a weapon aiming to his head. They were starting to get along, to understand each other. “You will tell me the truth right now.”

The weight of the order almost makes Shouyou’s back snap in half, his head tilting forwards upon hearing those words directed at him. So compelling, calling him to just go with the flow and to tell the truth. He shouldn’t refuse; Atsumu needs to know the truth and Shouyou is the only one who can clear the path for him to help him in his mission—

Shouyou tilts his head back and snarls at him, his lips retracting to show his teeth. They might not be as sharp as Atsumu’s but it’s still a sign of a _challenge_. He feels hurt and betrayed upon hearing the voice aimed at him as if the past month hadn’t happened at all.

“I told you to never do that again, Alpha,” Shouyou hisses, his fingers twitching over his lap. It hurts to call him like that, the word weighing like an insult on his tongue. It coats his taste buds with the bitter feeling of wasted time and energy, and he wonders if they will ever go back to the way they were just beginning to be. “Who the _fuck_ do you think you are?”

“Someone who needs to know the truth,” he answers without paying attention to the fact that he used the voice on Shouyou. “Why didn’t I turn into an infected?!”

“I told you!” Shouyou manages to exclaim, his sore throat complaining at the strain. “You’re immune!”

“That’s impossible! I would’ve given my life for the cure, why didn’t they tell me I was immune? Why did they send me after ya if they already had what they needed to—?”

Atsumu’s voice cracks and Shouyou feels his heart drop to his stomach. There are tears in his eyes and he’s gone unhealthily pale. _Not like this_ , he begs to whatever god is listening.

Of course nothing happens.

“There’s no virus anymore,” Shouyou says, softly, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal. “We’re all immune— have been for over a century.”

He never expected to be saying those words out loud. Judging by the way thing were going, he had started to think he’d carry that secret to his grave. Despite his reluctance to tell the truth in the first place, putting that grim secret into words makes him feel lighter than he’s felt in _years_. All those months carrying the weight of the truth on his own have taken a toll on him, wearing him out until what was left was just the shell of what he used to be.

He waits patiently for Atsumu to react. His expression goes from disbelief to surprise, and then _heartbreak_ and Shouyou starts to wish he wasn’t handcuffed and chained in his place. It looks like he’s going to crumble at any given moment and the least he can do for him is to hold him together while the weight of the truth starts to crash against him in the same way it did with Shouyou.

Atsumu crumbles then. Shouyou holds back the whimper that pushes its way up his throat.

He’s kneeled on the floor, a few metres away from him. His hands are tensed against the concrete and although Shouyou can’t see his face, he can imagine the expression twisting his features. All the pain, all the betrayal he must be feeling— Shouyou has felt them all and despite being unable to tell him that it’s nothing, that it will eventually pass, he wants to say those things anyway. Just to ease the pain, just to help him get through the broken barrier of that brainwash engraved into the very marrow of his bones.

“No,” he whispers. His voice cracks and Shouyou realizes he’s crying. He pulls at the chain attached to his ankle, tries to pull at the handcuffs to free himself but to no avail; he’s not as strong as Atsumu is. He cannot break them despite how desperate he feels for doing so. “No, yer— yer lyin’, arentcha?” Atsumu looks up, his eyes frantically looking for Shouyou’s as tears stream down his face. He looks like a mad man and Shouyou feels his heart constricting with pain. “This’s nothin’ but a joke. It must be. They can’t—”

“They can,” Shouyou whispers. He wants to look away but he can’t, almost like Atsumu is a flame and he’s nothing but a weak moth, relentlessly attracted to it. “And they’ve been doing it for almost two hundred years.”

“How long have ya known?”

The question is spat. He feels no sympathy for Shouyou.

“Since I left the safe zone,” he answers. Shame creeps its way up his back like spiders dragging across his skin. The idea that he was protecting him by not telling him the truth seems stupid now as he tries to drag closer to him. He can’t. “Before I fled I infiltrated the archives. I found everything there.”

“What else arentcha tellin’ me?” Atsumu hisses, his hands turning into fists against the concrete. He raises his eyes from the floor in front of him, fixing them on Shouyou’s frame with something akin to disgust written all over his features.

Shouyou presses his lips into a tight, pale line as he ponders his options. He’s already told him part of the truth, and as far as he’s concerned, Atsumu deserves to know all of it. He saved his life after all, and despite having the perfect chance —for the second time, too— to drag him back to the Hospital Number Five, he didn’t do it.

He sighs. There’s no turning back; he has to tell him the whole truth. He earned it.

“The virus had its breakout three hundred years ago,” he begins, his voice monotonous and tired. His throat hurts because of the dehydration, but something tells him Atsumu won’t give him any water until he’s satisfied with his answer. “It was a biological weapon created for the imminent World War III.”

Shouyou tells him everything; how the Japanese scientists developed a biological weapon that would absolutely obliterate the enemy’s troops. It was created to pass as the common flu at the beginning, created to spread like wildfire among humans of all ages without distinction. The virus caused severe lung problems that led to an infection and, in the final stage, it would cause a renal failure that would end in a quick, painful death. It was efficient and fast— it didn’t take more than seventy-two hours to reach its peak and kill the host.

The Japanese scientists created a vaccine that was disguised as a new vaccine for the common flu. It was called ‘experimental’ and the whole country was thrilled: the common flu was something no one had managed to get rid of, and the perspective made the population agree to be the scapegoats of something that hadn’t been approved by the World Health Organization. Of course it wasn’t a vaccine to fight the common flu— it was the only way the Japanese population could survive the outbreak of the virus once the imminent war reached their territory. The idea was to vaccinate Japan’s allies against the virus, too; the inoculation and the symptomatic development didn’t take more than a few hours: efficient, quick, and completely immune to the virus. The entire Defensive Army was inoculated —as well as the scientific team working on the virus and the highest political spheres, including the Imperial Family— and thus, all of them were immune to the virus.

In the meantime, before they could start inoculating the civil population, there was a security breach. No one ever found out who did it or how it happened: the virus spread to China, Korea and the Philippines first through civilians travelling to other parts of Asia, and then, when a person was trying to go to Europe, they passed out in the airport. That’s how the major outbreak in Japan started.

The virus spread quickly, as deadly as the scientists had created it. It took one week for it to decimate the whole Japanese population: the government saw in horror how the half of the inhabitants of the country died in a few days. The hospitals were so clogged with dying patients that no one had time to cremate the deceased and so, they buried them in mass graves all over the country.

The worst came after the burials.

If they’d had the time to cremate the deceased, the current problem that held humanity hostage wouldn’t be happening. Getting rid of the bodies would have stopped the next stage of the virus, something that no one could ever predict since the tests on humans hadn’t started when the security breach happened.

Scientists had developed a biological weapon that was able to kill in a matter of a few days. The weakness, the fever, the severe lung infection, and the inability to absorb the nutrients of the food ended inevitably in either renal failure or death by starvation. It was supposed to grant the Japanese soldiers and Japan’s allies advantage on the battlefield: the concept was akin to shooting a tied bird, trapped inside of a one for one metres box. It was supposed to be easy, to grant them the victory.

The worst symptoms, however, didn’t start to happen when the patient was alive. The worst symptoms manifested when they were _deceased_.

The mutation that the virus caused in the human genome produced, in colloquial words, _zombies_. People rising from their graves with a total loss of keratin, fingers that had lost all their flesh due to the process of digging their way out of their coffins ending in bloody, sharp bones, exposed for everyone to see. All the victims of the virus that hadn’t been cremated came back from the death caused by the injection of adrenaline given by the virus, the process accelerated by the emanations of the rotting process. The infected —as the Japanese population started to call them— transmitted the virus through bodily fluids, akin to the transmission of AIDS from one individual to the other: any wound, no matter how little it was, that got in contact with the saliva or the blood of the infected caused immediate infection.

The scarce population left on the territory didn’t just have to fight against the imminent death by the virus in an almost empty country; they now had to face the threat of the infected as well. Night creatures that hunted humans as their source of food, unable to stand under the sunlight because the virus had produced a severe reaction to the ultraviolet radiation of the sun. They expected them to starve to death once humankind moved underground but to no avail: they hunted humans, but never died of starvation. Fast and mutated to predate. Exposed phalanges that turned into hard, sharpened spurs created to tear the flesh apart, teeth that turned into serrated weapons, akin to those of a shark.

Japanese scientists had created the most dangerous massive extermination weapon in the history of humanity, even more than the nuclear bomb or the hydrogen bomb: a virus that kept killing even after death.

Shouyou swallows now that he’s done telling the story. His throat hurts and his tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. Atsumu has moved and he’s now sitting cross-legged a few metres away from him, the crossbow resting on his lap with his hands tightly wrapped around it.

“Yer tellin’ me this shitty world… is humanity’s fault?” he whispers. His voice sounds as hoarse as Shouyou’s and he tries his best not to grimace at his words. It technically _is_ , but at the same time, it’s just a few people’s. “That we’re livin’ like this ‘cause they were preparin’ for _war_?”

He nods. Atsumu’s eyes are-ice cold as he looks at Shouyou, an indecipherable expression settling over his features. He’s never looked more like a soldier than he does now— all of him sharp lines and murderous instinct oozing from every pore. It’s almost overwhelming, as overpowering as the voice, and he’s not doing anything.

“What happened to the Imperial Family?” Atsumu asks. Shouyou blinks in confusion— why is he asking about an old government that holds no meaning nowadays?

“They… they were accused of being part of an attempt to reinstate the Imperial Japan of World War II. The United Nations accused them of crimes against human rights and they were pushed to abdicate and give the power to a new government system. Representative democracy,” Shouyou answers, frowning slightly. What do the Imperial Family and the subsequent political crisis have to do with their current situation?

It occurs to him that maybe Atsumu wants to have every piece of information Shouyou is able to deliver. It makes sense to want to know what happened to the old country whose territory they’re occupying now. He would want the same thing in his position.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he whispers a few moments of silence later. He sounds sceptical as if Shouyou is making everything up as he goes. A jab of anxiety rises in his stomach; what if he doesn’t believe him? What if he decides that his story not only isn’t believable but a complete madness? “Why and _how_ are we all immune to the fuckin’ virus.”

“The vaccine,” Shouyou retorts, averting his gaze. He doesn’t want to look at Atsumu’s face— he doesn’t want to see the exact moment when he decides that he doesn’t trust him anymore. Maybe this story is the trigger for him to decide to accomplish his mission and drag him back to the safe zone. “The same way the virus made the human DNA mutate on the infected, it made the experimental subjects’ DNA mutate too. On time, we developed an advanced immunity that adapted to every variation possible of the virus… and turned us into what we are today.”

“Excuse the ever-lovin’ fuck outta me?”

Oh, he’s losing it. Shouyou grits his teeth and pushes down the burning need of looking at him.

“Our secondary gender,” he elaborates, reluctantly. “It developed because of the vaccine.”

Atsumu snorts as if he doesn’t believe a single word that just came out of his mouth and Shouyou starts to prepare for the final blow; the one that goes along the line of Atsumu telling him to fuck off. Even if he can’t go back to the safe zone, that doesn’t mean he’s gonna stick around if he decides his story isn’t believable, especially now that he knows how to survive on his own.

Shouyou interlocks his fingers over the hollow between his thighs and presses his fingerprints against the back of his hands until they turn a yellowish-white because of the strength imprinted into the motion. He doesn’t wanna hear it. It’s stupid that he’s gotten so attached to Atsumu after just one month, it’s stupid that he’s now just about to get what he wanted when he found him in that meadow and is desperate to reject it.

Atsumu sighs, a sound that’s broken-hearted and dragged as if someone’s ripping it out of his throat with a hook. Shouyou’s eyes snap back to him, frantically scanning his expression as he tries to find even the smallest sign that he trusts him, that he believes the story he just told him.

“I can’t believe it,” he says, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. He momentarily looks like a little kid who refuses to go to bed. “All this mess and for what?”

“Power,” Shouyou answers immediately. “They want _power_.”

“Who the _fuck_ is willin’ to go so far for just power?” Atsumu hisses.

“The big fishes,” he whispers. “Why do you think our entire system is based on keeping us apart and indoctrinating us to the point we’d do whatever it takes for the Hospital? _Protect, serve, obey, find the cure_. We’re just cattle for them.”

It sounds even worse when he says it out loud; it doesn’t really matter how many times he’s repeated the same words in his head, how many times he’s played them on loop until they started to lose their meaning. Languages have the power to turn everything into a reality.

“That’s…” Atsumu begins, choking on the words. Shouyou swallows down the pained whimper that pushes its way up his throat upon hearing Atsumu produce such a broken sound. “That’s the kinda people I’ve been servin’ my whole life?”

Shouyou gives him a sad smile, something more akin to a grimace that tasted sour on his tongue.

“Basically, yes,” he answers. “They don’t care about the future of humankind… they just want to stay on their chairs, sending people to death as their way to pay for their ‘membership’… if they told the truth, they wouldn’t be necessary anymore, especially after the infected are eradicated. Why would you need a military government if there’s no war to fight?”

“Why didntcha tell me before?”

He sounds hurt. Shouyou doesn’t wanna hear it.

“I didn’t trust you, remember?” he answers, averting his gaze so as to not see the pain in his expression. He doesn’t want to see that, either. His fingers are going numb against the back of his hands but he doesn’t let go of the iron-like grip. His wounded arm complains at the strain and he can feel the blood slowly extending on the bandages.

“Oh, and ya do now?” Atsumu snorts.

“Yes.”

His answer is so straightforward and easy that even he feels surprised. It’s ridiculous how it took him only one month to at least _trust_ Atsumu and get attached to him. However, once the initial surprise has passed, he realizes that he’s only spoken the truth. He doesn’t doubt his answer nor he doubts the fact that Atsumu is worthy of his trust. He saved his life _twice_ now.

“And it only took savin’ yer life twice, huh?” he snorts. The sarcasm in his voice is sharp enough to draw blood and Shouyou grimaces at it. “I can’t blame ya, though.”

He blinks at Atsumu, momentarily thrown off by his words.

“What?” he manages to push out. He’s barely able to hear his voice, raspy and hoarse as his throat complains at the extreme strain he’s put on it for the past thirty minutes. He’d almost forgotten how thirsty he is.

“In this world,” Atsumu begins, standing up. Shouyou follows his every move with an attentive stare, almost carefully as if his most basic survival instinct is still wary of him. He slides the strap of the crossbow off, walking towards the place where their backpacks are leaning against the demolished wall. “Ya can’t trust anyone.”

With a hum, Atsumu crouches in front of his backpack and rummages through his things until he finds the water bottle. He places the crossbow beside Shouyou’s backpack, straightening his back before turning on the soles of his boots and walking towards him.

“So you believe me?” Shouyou asks; it’s almost like a plea, filled with hope and relief.

“Why wouldja lie to me?” Atsumu answers, crouching in front of him as he uncaps the bottle. He presses the finish against Shouyou’s lips, waiting patiently for him to reach out and grab it eagerly as he downs the content on one long gulp. “Ya had a lot of chances to kill me, but ya didn’t do it. And trust me, there were _a lot_. If ya weren’t sayin’ the truth, ya would’ve killed me long ago… and ya wouldn’t be tellin’ me in the first place.”

The finish disappears from his lips and Shouyou puffs out a relieved sigh.

“There’s one thing ‘m still curious ‘bout, though,” he says, carefully placing the water bottle on the ground at his left. Shouyou licks his lips in an attempt to catch any drop of water that might have gotten out of his mouth, eager to drink a bit more but knowing he shouldn’t force himself after almost dying of blood loss. “Does your _mysterious_ trip have anythin’ to do with the situation the safe zone is in?”

Shouyou blinks. His first instinct is to refuse to answer, and the next one goes along the lines of derailing the conversation so Atsumu’s deduction goes unanswered. He stomps on both of them until they lie dead underneath his feet.

He sighs. There’s no point in hiding it anymore; Shouyou repeats to himself how Atsumu _deserves_ to know the truth as if he’s trying to bypass the instincts he built one year ago when he fled the only place he’d ever known. The only place he’d ever called _home_.

“Yeah,” he answers, frowning slightly. It almost feels like he’s revealing some dirty secret that doesn’t belong to him, something he should’ve kept in silence until the day he died. “I’m heading north to find the closest safe zone to ask for their help.”

Atsumu blinks in astonishment. He looks like a pretty that’s living its last seconds of life, waiting for the blow that’d end its life.

“There’re… other safe zones?”

There’s hope in his voice. Shouyou had forgotten how the existence of other safe zones was a secret for everyone in the Hospital Number Five.

“Five that I know of,” he says, a frown knitting in the middle of his forehead. “There was a map in the archives.”

“Didja steal it, by any chance?” Atsumu asks with a playful tone.

The tension in Shouyou’s back vanishes as it had never been there. That simple joke manages to help him get rid of the sheer panic he felt about Atsumu deciding to fuck off. Admittedly, Atsumu doesn’t need him anymore; the only thing Shouyou had to keep him around was the excuse of him not knowing how to handle the outer world. Now, however, he knows at least the basics, which is more than Shouyou knew when he first set foot onto the surface.

“Nope,” he retorts, popping the p. Atsumu deflates and Shouyou grins, pleased with himself. “I memorized it.”

“Why… why wouldja do that if ya could simply steal it?”

The question, as others Atsumu has made ever since they met, sounds stupid. The fact that Shouyou feels attached to him doesn’t change his idea that Miya Atsumu has one functioning brain cell left.

“’Cause that’d tell the big fishes where to find me,” he sighs, shrugging. “If you had a map with all the possible locations a fugitive might run to, wouldn’t you use it to find them?”

“That…” he begins, clearing his throat. “That makes a lotta sense, actually.”

“I know,” Shouyou brags, his grinning widening just a bit. “You know what else makes sense?”

“What?”

“Getting these handcuffs off of me.”

Atsumu snorts, rolling his eyes so hard Shouyou is scared they’ll pop out of their sockets. He fishes the handcuff key out of his pocket, along with the padlock key, and his agile fingers work both locks open until they click and Shouyou’s wrist and ankle are set free.

He massages his wrists carefully with his fingers, grimacing at the red lines that mark his skin there where the handcuffs pressed against it. He repeats the process with his ankle, ignoring the stinging feeling left by the metal tightly tied around the limb, trying his best to not look at it.

Atsumu makes a choked sound and Shouyou’s eyes snap toward him, a sinking feeling weighing in his stomach as he realizes that he’s _crying_. The fact in itself doesn’t surprise him— he cried himself to sleep several nights after escaping because of the knowledge he’d —reluctantly— acquired before leaving the safe zone. What surprises him is the fact that he looked perfectly fine a few seconds ago, even laughing as the atmosphere between them seemed to brighten up.

His fingers twitch as he reaches out, his hands stopping a few centimetres away from his face. Atsumu’s hand is pressed against his left eye as he sobs in silence, his head hanging low. His bangs cover part of his expression but Shouyou doesn’t need to get a full glance at it to know that his world is falling apart. Everything he thought true, every single thing he did his whole life— _everything_ turned out to be mistaken. Shouyou knows the feeling.

His fingers finally make contact with Atsumu’s face as he cradles it between his hands. Atsumu’s left hand falls to his lap, a surprised stare fixing on Shouyou’s eyes as his thumbs brush against the highest angle of his cheekbones, drying the salty tears that stream down his cheeks.

“Hey,” he whispers, giving him a reassuring smile. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re not on your own.”

Atsumu blinks at him, a few tears hanging from his unfairly long, thick eyelashes. Then, slowly, almost carefully, he gives Shouyou a sad smile as his hands reach up to cover his, his fingers giving Shouyou’s a tender squeeze.

“Yah,” he sighs, leaning a bit into the touch. “I know.”

From there, their relationship becomes closer. Now that Shouyou doesn’t have to carefully choose the words he’s gonna use, now that he’s sure Atsumu won’t do anything to drag him back to the Hospital Number Five, it feels like a heavy weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. He still feels the effects of it, though; sometimes, just _sometimes_ , the old instinct of trusting no one kicks in and leaves him staring into the void, questioning why he would not trust Atsumu.

In this world, in the current situation they’re in, they only have each other. It’s a deeper bond than he’d expected; different from family, different from friends. It’s something Shouyou had never experienced in his life and sometimes, it makes him feel confused and slightly out of place. Would Atsumu think of him in the same way? Would he value his company in the same way Shouyou values his?

Another month goes by and they’re nearing the end of summer. Nights are getting colder and the sun doesn’t stay as long up in the sky. Shouyou is deeply thankful for the clothes they’re both wearing— despite the lack of advanced technology, the Hospital Number Five managed to come up with fabrics that adapt to the weather. Which means they won’t freeze to death once the winter comes.

The huge problem they start to face is the ever-growing lack of food. Once autumn starts to roll around, the amount of fruits and vegetables they’re able to find in the wild becomes smaller with each passing day. Shouyou knows that they can still subsist on potatoes and roots, as well as fish, but the fear of going hungry is always present when you’re out in the real world without anyone to produce the food for you. He knows that he’d eat the crappy food produced in the safe zone if he spent more than three days without food.

Atsumu, however, doesn’t seem as worried about the food as Shouyou feels. They’ve been travelling for two months now and albeit knowing that the closest safe zone is a little closer every day, Shouyou can’t shake off the fear. Atsumu is optimistic about their times; he’s sure they’ll arrive at the other safe zone before the winter arrives.

“Which begs the question,” Atsumu comments while he stretches on the blanket. They found a pretty comfortable place to spend the night, a small apartment complex that seems to have resisted the inclement weather pretty well despite having been abandoned for almost three hundred years. Granted, it smells like humidity and there are more spiders than Shouyou would like, but at least it’s not demolished like the other buildings they’ve been staying at. “Why haven’t ya arrived at the other safe zone? We’re makin’ a great time according to ya… why didntcha get there sooner?”

Shouyou blinks into the darkness of what he assumes used to be a living room.

“Travelling _that_ far when you’re alone is hard,” he answers, shrugging. He’s wrapped up in the blanket, slightly trembling because of the low temperature. He’s sure they’ll have to sleep with a campfire once September begins. “Besides, I was still learning how to hunt and keep myself out of trouble.”

“Ya had to go back, right? That’s why I found ya after two weeks.”

“Yeah… the infected made all the animals flee the zone I was going through. They don’t attack animals for food, but the animals don’t like the infected either.”

Atsumu hums amidst the darkness and Shouyou turns around so he’s facing the source of the sound. He can’t see Atsumu, but he knows where he is; he can _smell_ him, almost feel the warmth that comes from his skin.

“Dja ever think ‘bout how those things used to be like us?” he muses in a whisper. “Every single one of the infected used to have a family, friends—”

“Don’t,” Shouyou stops him, closing his eyes. He presses his eyelids together until his vision turns red and there are stars dancing in front of his eyes. “Don’t think about that.”

“Why?”

“It makes it harder to kill them,” he manages to push out. He got one of the biggest scars —the one on his right shoulder— because he questioned that exact same thing when he was fighting an infected. If that thought ever showed up again at the wrong time and place, it could quite literally get him killed. And since he’s not on his own anymore, it could also cause Atsumu’s death. “When you start seeing them as the humans they were… you hesitate. Atsumu-san, you _cannot_ hesitate while facing an infected, because they won’t hesitate to kill you. They lack the capacity to do so.”

His words seem to float in the air between them, heavy and grim. It’s hard to forget what they used to be and Shouyou is well aware of that— every infected out there used to have a family. Friends. Maybe a partner. They had jobs, a daily life that they never thought it would turn in endless torture. A life that ends with you being stripped of your consciousness, your desires, every single little thing that makes you the person you are is never among the plans of a normal person.

“Think of it this way,” he goes on, a few heartbeats later. “You’re putting them out of their misery. Imagine you end up like them… always hungry but never dying of starvation. Unable to stand in the sunlight. A thoughtless creature roaming the earth just because someone wanted to win a war that never came to be.”

Shouyou can almost hear him shivering at the thought.

“It’s almost an act of mercy,” he comments in a whisper. “I didn’t— it’s just hard, y’know? To forget what they were.”

“I know,” Shouyou sighs. “But we need to try. It’s the only way.”

Atsumu hums in acknowledgement, a weak sound that seems to echo through the darkness.

“We should sleep,” he says a few moments later. He yawns, muffling the sound with what Shouyou assumes is his hand. “G’night, Shouyou-kun.”

“Night, Atsumu-san.”

They keep travelling north as the autumn starts to spread its fingers through the surface. The vivid green of the trees starts to turn into a yellowish-brown, the cold air bringing the smell of rotten leaves and damp soil. The metamorphosis around them injects some sort of urgency into their bloodstreams, reminding them that they don’t have time to waste.

Their routine, however, suffers little to no changes. Waking up with the sun, preparing breakfast, hunting, cooking, cleaning. Gathering firewood. Kill a few infected as the night falls to secure their temporary shelter. Repeat.

What does change, however, is the atmosphere between them. Now that Shouyou has nothing to hide since Atsumu already knows everything he knows, he feels more relaxed and free. He hadn’t realized how tight the ties of knowledge were until he got rid of them, the weight of the true intentions of the commanders having taken a big toll on his already deteriorated mental health.

He still wakes up drenched in a cold sweat every now and then, the after images of the nightmares still playing like flashes across his vision, grimmer in the dark than they would be under the sunlight. The lucubrations of what might have happened to him if he hadn’t fled the safe zone will follow him until the end of the world and he knows it, whispering voices telling him how much of a coward he is. How easier it would have been if he had just died, even if the cure didn’t exist. All the suffering he’s endured up until the moment when he wakes up wouldn’t exist; everything would be the never-ending bliss of _nothingness_.

The days after those nightmares are _hell_. It feels like his entire body weighs twice his real weight, his eyes sore and swollen. His reflexes feel like they come in slow motion, late and useless in a world that requires one’s mind to constantly keep up. Every time he has nightmares, the day after becomes some sort of sequel to those dreams that won’t leave him alone no matter how hard he tries to focus on something else.

It’s one of those nights when he wakes up drenched in a cold sweat, trembling like a leaf on the wind that he finally snaps. It’s been a whole year —plus a few months— suffering from nightmares, a long time having to deal with the aftermaths of his subconscious laughing at his face.

A gasp leaves his mouth as he sits up, untangling himself from the blanket by kicking it away with all the strength his trembling body can muster. He whimpers, hiding his face in his hands as he tries to get rid of the after images still lingering behind his eyelids; a long needle piercing the skin of the inside of his elbow, an operation table, hundreds upon hundreds of awfully-looking medical tools that he’s well aware they don’t even exist. The person he was in his dream, however, was quite sure the faceless doctors towering over him would cut him open —while still being conscious— with them.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. His chest feels heavy, constricted with a scream he can’t let out because it could attract _unwanted attention._ He feels nauseated, bile kicking at the back of his throat as he tries to shake off the imaginary smell of sterilization of his skin. “Fuck, _fuck_.”

In the time he’s been out in the wild, he’s never wished he could have a shower as bad as he does now. He can still feel the cold metal of the operation table prickling on his back, sending shivers down his spine, the pain of the needle piercing the flesh of his arm. The choking, overwhelming smell of sterilization. Those strange hands pressing against his legs as they tied the immobilization straps around his ankles. The sound of their breathings inside of their face masks—

“Shouyou-kun?”

Shouyou startles as his head snaps toward the source of the sound. Atsumu’s voice pierces the silence and the darkness, throwing him face-first into a reality that still lingers with all the sensations clinging to his skin like leeches. He scratches at his left arm absentmindedly while he clears his throat.

“Ah, Atsumu-san,” he pushes out, voice hoarse and raspy. His throat feels raw like he’s been screaming for hours. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

There’s a soft _click_ and the room is suddenly filled with the hard light of the LED lamp, a white circle surrounding them as the illumination hurts Shouyou’s retinas. He blinks the white stars that dance across his vision away, frowning slightly at the unpleasant pressure that seems to push his eyeballs against their sockets.

“Ya okay?” Atsumu asks. He’s sitting on his bed, his body turned towards Shouyou as a worried expression settles itself over his features. He’s frowning, his eyes fixed on Shouyou’s hand as he scratches his left arm absentmindedly. “I heard you scream.”

 _Oh_. So that’s why his throat hurts.

“How long did I—” he begins, choking on the words as soon as he tries to say them. He scratches with a bit more strength. “How long was I screaming?”

Atsumu purses his lips as if he’s reluctant to answer.

“A few seconds before ya woke up,” he finally says, inhaling sharply. His fingers are tense across his lap. “Shouyou-kun, stop.”

“Mhm?” he hums, blinking in confusion.

Atsumu sighs before dragging a bit closer to him, his right hand reaching out for his to stop the almost frantic scratching. His fingers are warm against his as he squeezes tenderly, guiding his blood-stained fingers away from the wound left by his nails. Shouyou’s eyes fix on the four red crescent moons crowning his fingers and he sucks in a sharp intake of air as he realizes what he’s just done.

“Ah, fuck. Sorry,” he apologizes, cringing at the croak that is his voice.

Atsumu snorts, letting go of his hand as his fingers reach out toward his face, the fingertip of his thumb drying the stray tear running down Shouyou’s cheek.

“Why’re ya apologizin’?” he questions, tenderly. Shouyou blinks at him, dumbfounded by the gesture, but does nothing to stop it. This might be just what he needed— emotional support after seeing one of his worst fears being thrown at his face by no other than his own subconscious. “Ya had a nightmare?”

He nods weakly. It’s quite obvious, especially given the fact that he woke Atsumu up with his screaming, but something tells him that Atsumu _wants_ him to talk about the issue. As if that’s gonna stop the nightmares from creeping back every now and then, prompted by the gory images he’s exposed to every day of his life.

“Wanna talk ‘bout it?” Atsumu asks, confirming his suspicions. There’s something indecipherable moving behind his eyes, something fleeting that Shouyou can’t seem to catch. It’s gone before he has the time to fully register it on his brain, its existence so brief that he almost thinks he imagined it. “Talkin’ ‘bout it might help ya to… I don’t know, get things off of yer chest.”

Shouyou ponders his options; on the one hand, he _knows_ Atsumu won’t pressure him into talking about it if he doesn’t want to. On the other, he _does_ wanna talk about his nightmare, if only to see if doing so helps him to get rid of the residual images lingering in the back of his eyelids.

“I—” he begins. The words choke him, weighing on his tongue with the feeling of putting everything out there. Telling Atsumu about his nightmares is basically telling him his deepest fears, lay it all out for him to see, and despite the fact that he trusts him with no hesitation, there’s still some wariness going around in his head. This is something he wouldn’t tell his mother or his sister, the two persons he trusts and loves the most in the world. “I dreamed about the safe zone.”

Atsumu grimaces at his words as if the idea of Shouyou having bad memories of the Hospital Number Five hurt him.

“What was it ‘bout?”

“The day they told me they’d use me to create the cure,” he says, the memory coming back to him like a slap across his face. The deadpan expression on his commander’s face, the papers held between his hands as he swayed them in front of his eyes as if to prove the truth behind his words. The small, dark eyes that looked like marbles, cold and cruel, staring at him as if he’d just fallen into his trap. Shouyou feels the same fear again— fear of dying, acidic panic covering his tongue, covering the palms of his hands with a cold, sweaty sweat he couldn’t dry against the hem of his trousers. “I… I don’t know how the procedure would happen, you know? I was just scared to death. And truth be told, my mind didn’t help a lot either.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Atsumu asks, softly. It feels like he’s talking to a wounded animal.

“You knew the labs, right?” Shouyou sighs, a humourless laugh going past his lips without him meaning to.

“Yah. We all went there regularly for the tests.”

“You saw the things they had laying around.”

It’s not a question, it’s an affirmation. Atsumu nods anyway.

“That shit is the stuff of nightmares,” he comments, shrugging as if he doesn’t really care. Thing is… he does care. Or at least his mind does, if the fact that it fabricated awful scenario after awful scenario involving those terrifying tools is something to get by. “My mind decided it’d be fun to show me how they used them… on me.”

Saying it out loud makes it sound _stupid_. All his fears, deep-rooted inside of his being, are things he never told anyone. He didn’t know they were there until he left the safe zone and thus, he never talked about them with his mother. But once he was out in the open, all alone and trying to survive for himself, everything came crashing down like a wave.

He’s well aware of how irrational his fears are. Almost childish, like he’s just talking about how scared he is of the dark. However, the knowledge doesn’t do anything to erase them— it only seems to make them worse, hurting him in ways that they originally weren’t able to.

“Dja think it’s stupid?” Atsumu asks after a few moments of silence. He doesn’t sound judgemental nor doesn’t it sound like he’s making fun of him because of his fears. 

“Kind… of?” his voice goes up on the last syllable, making his phrase sound more like a question than a statement.

“I get why ya think it is,” Atsumu hums, running his fingers through his dishevelled hair. The gesture only causes the mess to look even messier and Shouyou finds himself unable to look away. “Fears aren’t usually rational… but ya gotta give yerself more credit, y’know? Ya went through a pretty traumatic event and then ya had to survive all on yer own for a whole year before I showed up, fuckin’ yer schedule up. Ya don’t need to be the tough guy all the time.”

Shouyou opens his mouth to say something but closes it a few seconds later without having said anything. He knows Atsumu is right but he can’t fathom the idea of allowing himself to show any sign of weakness. Fear makes him weak, turns him into a creature that is unable to fight for his life. Living in this world, any sign of weakness might be the last thing you’d do, and Shouyou’s only drive is to _survive_ to get his family out of the safe zone.

“That’s really kind, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou sighs, smiling at him. It’s a tired expression, something that almost drains him of all his energy. “But I know it’s not true.”

He chuckles.

“Wait, lemme guess,” he stops him when he notices Shouyou is about to complain. He lifts his index finger as if trying to physically stop the conversation. “Fear is a weakness and therefore it ain’t allowed in the big, scary world?”

Shouyou frowns. How the hell did he manage to guess that?

Upon noticing his reaction, Atsumu chuckles; his laughter rises from his mouth, refreshing and very welcome, helping Shouyou’s muscles to relax a little.

“Lemme tell ya this,” he begins, dragging a bit closer to Shouyou. He leans in, his face stopping a few centimetres away from Shouyou’s; he gets a perfect view of his long eyelashes, of his high cheekbones, and the shit-eating grin pulling at the right corner of his lips. “What dja think ‘bout the permanent suppressors?”

Shouyou blinks, confused, before a deep frown knits in the middle of his forehead. What do the suppressors have to do with any of this?

“They’re inhumane,” he answers. His voice is almost violent as he says those words like venom sliding down the corners of his mouth, the bitter taste coating his tongue, choking him with something he knows he’ll never be able to get rid of. He’ll never stop hating the safe zone and everything its big fishes did to him and the ones he loves.

“So what yer sayin’ is that denyin’ humans from their natural processes is inhumane, amirite?”

“Yeah?”

“Then why dja deny yerself the natural process of feelin’ _fear_?” Atsumu asks, his smirk widening a little when Shouyou’s eyes sparkle with bad conceited surprise. “We humans developed fear ‘cause it keeps us alert, ready for everythin’. Is it rational? ‘Course it ain’t. But that doesn’t mean ya get to deny yerself somethin’ that’s natural.”

Despite himself, a burst of laughter bubbles up Shouyou’s throat, making him feel light and free from his own mind for the first time since he left the safe zone. Atsumu is right; fear is something natural. Something he shouldn’t avoid, as well as the rest of the emotions that make him human. Doing so puts him on the same level as the rest of the soldiers who refuse to see beyond the brainwash they were subjected to: it only turns him into the weapon the safe zone wanted him to be.

He’s never gonna take part in it.

Winter rolls around with snow and a piercing-cold wind that makes Shouyou shiver as he tries his best to navigate through the thick layer of snow coating the soil. Everything is white and too bright for his eyesight’s sake; his legs feel heavy as he pushes against the blizzard that makes his face feel raw.

The current scenery makes it hard for him to measure the distance they still have to walk until they reach the closest safe zone; he did memorize the map, but he doesn’t have any tool to help him orientate in this weather. He just needs to keep going north— or so he hopes.

He expects Atsumu to comment on how long they’ve been walking; it’s been six months since Shouyou found him and he hasn’t given any sign of being close to the safe zone. However, Atsumu doesn’t seem to mind, even when his teeth are clicking as he shivers. He simply does whatever he needs to do as if he’s just happy to be here; fulfilled with the mere fact of being _free_ , of being able to make his own choices.

Logically, each night gets colder than the one before; it’s usual for them to have to sleep beside a campfire every night, covering every single hole and crack that could give their position away to the infected. It’s a tiring task since they’re always on the move and the only times they sit down and rest are when they’re eating or sleeping. They’re very well aware of how exhaustion could give them problems in the future, but neither of them wants to stop; there’s a feeling akin to urgency that pushes them to move, to walk, to never stand still. As if death itself is breathing on their necks.

Food is scarce, but they still manage just fine; their sense of smell, sharper than a Beta’s, guide them to find the prey whose fur changed to camouflage with their surroundings. They do miss fruits and green-leaf vegetables, scarcer than everything else, and Shouyou is sure that if he eats another boiled potato he will explode of frustration, but at least their stomachs are full when they go out to keep walking.

Since the sun goes down earlier, they go to bed earlier, too. It’s also easy to sleep in, which causes Shouyou some frustration; he can’t really remember how he managed to wake up early during the coldest months. Something tells him that the reason it took him so long to get here was precisely that: him sleeping in during the winter.

When he tells Atsumu about it, he just laughs it off.

“Ya put too much pressure on yerself,” he chuckles, shrugging against the blanket covering his shoulders. He’s sipping at the soup in his bowl, gently blowing on the surface before taking a gulp. “Relax. We’re close, ain’t we?”

“I think so?” Shouyou answers, sighing as he pours some more soup into his own bowl. His hand prickles there where the temperature rises, sending wave after wave of an unpleasant feeling that he recognizes as a burn through the nerves of his arm. “I can’t really tell with this weather.”

“This is where a map would come in handy,” Atsumu singsongs, giving him that fox-like smile that months ago made him want to smack him. Now, however, it just prompts an annoyed eye roll. “’m just kiddin’. We just gotta keep movin’. There’s nothin’ else we can do.”

He sighs, his stare fixing on the surface of the hot soup. Steam curls up from the food, mixing with the cloud of condensation that leaves his mouth.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

It takes them two more weeks to find the safe zone. Especially since they don’t find it per se— the other safe zone finds _them_.

It’s a normal day —as normal as it can get for them—: they’re out there, hunting a few chickens for lunch when something hits the back of Atsumu’s knee. He puffs out a surprised gasp as his knees fold underneath the weight of his body, his kneecaps hitting the snow-covered ground.

Shouyou hears the sound, his eyes perking up as he turns around with his crossbow ready—

Only to find someone pointing a fire gun at Atsumu’s head.

The sight of the shiny metal underneath the pale winter sunlight makes his knees go weak. Back at the Hospital Number Five, none of the cadets or the lower rank soldiers were allowed to carry one of those; revolvers and pistols were reserved for the highest ranks and neither of the soldiers learned how to use any of those guns. The place where Shouyou comes from sees guns as signs of power, rank, and _control_.

He swallows the thick saliva gathered at the back of his throat, his finger tensing against the trigger of the crossbow as a hiss pushes its way up his throat.

 _Don’t fucking touch him_.

“Put that thing down,” he spits, an angry snarl following his words. The person pointing the gun at Atsumu’s head turns around slightly, just enough to give him a surprised stare of a pair of dark brown eyes. His hair, brown as well, is marbled with snowflakes. “Or I’ll shoot. Do _not_ fucking test me.”

Atsumu looks at him from his position, an almost proud smirk curling up the corners of his mouth. His fingers are interlocked behind his head and he looks way too relaxed to the barrel of a pistol pressed against his nape.

The person pointing his gun at Atsumu’s head smiles. It’s a lopsided, almost as if he’s challenging Shouyou to shoot.

“My gun is way faster than your crossbow, shrimpy,” he says, his thumb pulling from the safe of the pistol. Shouyou hears the click of the mechanism, hears the bullet going into the camera and he hisses out loud. “Now what do we—?”

Shouyou shoots, the recoil sending a wave of adrenaline through his bloodstream. The bolt whistles through the air as he loads a new projectile onto the flight groove; he watches with deep satisfaction as the bolt passes right beside the stranger’s ear, drawing a drop of blood before sinking into the trunk of a tree.

“Drop. The. _Gun_ ,” he orders.

“Oh,” the stranger sighs, blinking at him in a surprised confusion that would prompt a bark of laughter out of him in another situation. In this one, however, the perspective of Atsumu’s life being in danger makes rage boil in his stomach and he’s way part his internal questions about this being his Omega instinct kicking in or not. “Looks like you’re good with that thing.”

“I’m like a fucking surgeon with this thing,” he brags in a snarl.

“I’d advise ya to listen to him,” Atsumu purrs. The stranger loses his focus for a few seconds, enough for Atsumu’s hands to move quickly as he intertwines his fingers together and drives his left elbow backwards, nailing the person holding the gun right in the groin.

Another gun clicks as something cold presses against the back of Shouyou’s head. His heart drops to his knees when he realizes he didn’t think the stranger might not be alone, and as he belittles himself for it, he moves slowly, craning his neck so he’s able to look over his shoulder through the corner of his eyes.

It’s a person a bit taller than him, dark brown hair reaching down to almost touch his shoulders, yellow eyes like a cat’s staring coldly at him. He looks bored, tired even, with dark circles under his eyes, clashing against the pale skin of someone who hasn’t seen the sunlight in a long while.

“Put the crossbow down,” he orders in a dragged tone that makes Shouyou think that he’d rather be anywhere else than here.

“Or what?” Shouyou hisses. He knows pretty damn well what’s gonna happen if he doesn’t let the crossbow hang against his hip— this other stranger will end his life. The perspective, though grim and not really preferable, doesn’t scare him as much as the idea of the brown-haired guy pressing his gun against Atsumu’s head. “You gonna make a hole in my head?”

“Yeah, that’s more or less what’s gonna happen,” the stranger answers, shrugging almost absentmindedly. “Look, I don’t want to shoot— you guys must be here for a good reason. I’ve never seen you around.”

“Around?” Shouyou echoes, frowning slightly. “Around _what_?”

“Nekoma,” comes the simple answer. Three simple syllables that manage to make Shouyou’s knees go weak with the realization of who these people are. He swallows, his fingers trembling as he slowly, _carefully_ , drops his grip on the crossbow until it’s painfully bouncing against his hip. “Safe zone.”

“Well,” Atsumu begins, clearing his throat. He’s dusting his trousers, getting rid of the snow lingering on the hem. “Ain’t this a surprise.”

The other safe zone, commonly known as Nekoma, turns out to be an old school building. It’s big enough to give shelter to about ten thousand people and the grounds around it were turned into broad extensions of crops protected by a white, porous material he can’t put a name to; when the brown-haired guy and the cat-eyed guy guide them through the entrance, beyond the barbed wire that surrounds the safe zone’s grounds, Shouyou’s eyes catch a quick look of things he’s never seen before through the transparent plastic that covers the entrances of the tent-like protections: long, gold-like spikes that reach up like fingers, tall green plants with yellowish things wrapped in the biggest leafs Shouyou has ever seen. He gasps at the sight, leaning a bit forward to catch another glimpse of the crops, Atsumu chuckling beside him as he gives him a short shake of his head.

“I know,” he complains, rolling his eyes. His voice comes out almost like a whine. “I just wanna _see_.”

“Somethin’ tells me we’ll have more than enough time to look around,” Atsumu comments, giving the brown-haired guy a smart-ass smirk that earns him a frown and a grimace. As usual, he looks too pleased with himself for it to be healthy. “Don’t worry yer pretty little head— I don’t think they’re gonna kill us.”

Shouyou frowns, too, his eyebrows rising until they’re almost touching the line of his hair.

“And you’re sure about that because…?” he asks, letting the question delicately hang in between them.

“If they wanted to kill us,” Atsumu starts to explain, a fox-like grin sliding over his lips, “they would’ve done so already.”

He’s not really sure about the guy who got his balls sent to his throat by Atsumu’s elbow, but he doesn’t argue. He’s right; the cat-eyed guy could probably have killed him if he’d wanted to. He wouldn’t have stopped to talk to him if he wanted Shouyou dead.

However, Hinata Shouyou is used to distrust every new person he meets, and these guys aren’t any different. Despite the fact that they belong to the other safe zone, nothing guarantees that they don’t have any contact with the Hospital Number Five. If they do —which wouldn’t surprise him at all since he still doesn’t know every little secret hidden within those damp walls—, they can quickly let the big fishes know where he is and therefore, send him right to his death. And Atsumu’s.

The perspective makes a sinking feeling open a void in his stomach.

The strangers guide them through the entrance hall of the school, filled with closet-like furniture aligned along the white walls. There are benches scattered around the room, most of them with bags resting atop of them; his eyes catch the sight of another gun and he quickly averts his gaze as if he’s just seen something he wasn’t supposed to.

Hallway after hallway the strangers guide Atsumu and Shouyou deeper and deeper into the safe zone. There where Shouyou expects to find the unpleasant smell of humidity and secluded spaces, he only finds a faint scent of something acidic as well as thousands of individual scents mixed together; he can only guess, but he’s almost sure those scents belong to the people living there, going about their daily lives in a similar way to the Hospital Number Five.

The difference is outstanding, though; no one seems to rush to do anything, no one seems to be a dead man walking. The few people they cross paths with are smiling, chatting cheerfully among them as they greet their guides and give them curious looks; it’s as if they’ve never seen anything like them.

Shouyou realizes why after their guides stop in front of something that looks like an office, the brown-haired guy knocking on the wooden door three times before sliding it over the rail and announcing they have ‘visitors’.

None of them is wearing military attire.

Shouyou hears the click of a lighter and his eyes move from the hallway towards the source of the sound; the broad office is bathed in the pale light of the fluorescents built-in on the ceiling, wooden desks and chairs aligned in such a way that it looks very alike a classroom. Sitting at the last desk on the back of the office is a black-haired man with intelligent yellow eyes, sitting back against the backrest of his chair, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips.

“Kenma?” the man asks. The cat-eyed guy shrugs, still uninterested in the whole ordeal, as he points at Atsumu and Shouyou with his thumb. “Yes, I see them. Who are they?”

“No idea,” he answers. “Oikawa and I found them near the entrance. This guy over here,” he keeps on, pointing at Atsumu with a deadpan twist of his neck, “managed to nail Oikawa right in the balls.”

“Hey, now,” the guy named Oikawa whines. “I got _distracted_. Shrimpy tried to kill me, don’t you remember?”

Shouyou frowns. He hates that nickname despite not knowing what it means.

“Oikawa, Kenma,” the man sitting behind the desk sighs. It’s almost a defeated, tired sound, and Shouyou would relate if his back hadn’t suddenly tensed as if sensing a threat. Atsumu, at his left, looks on edge, too. His hazel eyes move frantically around the room, taking in as many details as he can manage before the cigarette man demands their attention. “You can leave now. Thank you for bringing these two here. And Oikawa…”

“Yes?”

“Go to the infirmary and ask for some ice, would you?”

Atsumu snickers under his breath and Shouyou tries his best to not smile; despite the tension making the muscles of his back feel almost numb, the whole situation _is_ kind of funny. It’s amusing that this is how they meet the first humans they’ve seen in a long—

Shouyou’s stomach seems to twist when the realization hits him. Kenma and Oikawa are the first humans they’ve encountered since they’ve been travelling together; the first time they’ve heard the voices of someone that wasn’t each other. The first time they’ve interacted with someone else, the first time they’ve seen _so many_ people gathered in one place in months.

Oikawa answers something that Shouyou doesn’t catch and then the pair is on their way, closing the door behind their backs to leave Shouyou and Atsumu talk in private with the cigarette man. The tension on Shouyou’s back seems to spread across his body as he tries to memorize the location of the windows and the distance from the door to the desk as they make their way towards the man comfortably sitting a few metres in front of them.

Atsumu stops first, a few steps away from the desk, with his hands on his hips as he stares at the man with an evaluative gaze. He doesn’t seem to trust him any more than Shouyou does and it’s slightly shocking to see the wary expression on his face; Atsumu seemed to trust him easily enough, without a single trace of doubt. Granted, Shouyou had just saved his life, but it’s still weird to see him behaving like that.

“So,” the man begins, pulling the cigarette from his lips to hit it with the fingertip of his index finger over the ashtray. He seems both curious and wary, which perfectly sums up what Shouyou is currently feeling. “What are an Omega and an Alpha doing out in the open, on their own, and dressed like they _just_ fled the Hospital Number Five?”

Upon the mention of the safe zone, Shouyou’s lips twitch with the burning need of showing his teeth. A hiss makes its way up his throat and he swallows it back down, trying his best to stay calm in this situation. His fingers ache for the cold contact of the crossbow hanging against his hip.

“Well, we _did_ leave the Hospital a while ago,” Atsumu answers, squinting slightly at the man. Oh, he doesn’t trust him _at all_.

The man arches his eyebrows, somewhat surprised at his confirmation. It looks like he didn’t expect them to come from such a place, if the slight grimace that settles itself over his features is something to get by.

“I’ve heard rumours about that place,” he comments. He takes the cigarette back to his lips and takes a long drag, the fire crackling as it consumes both tobacco and paper. Where did he get cigarettes? As far as Shouyou knows, those things aren’t easy to find, let alone _produce_. “Why’re you two here, then? This is the first place the commander will look for you… simple logic.”

Shouyou’s fingers twitch.

“So you’re gonna rat us out?” he says, as flatly as he can manage. The acrid smell of tobacco prickles on his nose; it reminds him of the safe zone’s commander.

“What?” the man exhales with a puff of white smoke. He blinks a few times towards Shouyou as if he’s unable to believe what he just said. “Why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Shouyou shoots back. Atsumu moves a bit closer, his fingers softly grasping his to give him a tender squeeze of reassurance.

“I don’t want the Hospital sticking its nose in Nekoma’s business. The government there is quite known for being a dictatorship.”

“So y’all _knew_ ‘bout the situation of the Hospital?” Atsumu asks, arching his eyebrows with something that’s midway between surprise and disgust. Shouyou notices the tension in his fingers as he casts a sideways glance toward him, smelling the aggressiveness that starts to ooze from his skin. “And ya didn’t do _anythin’_?”

“Not to be rude,” the man starts, frowning. His eyes are ice-cold as they fix on the snarl Atsumu is directing at him. “But we can’t give us the luxury of helping a whole safe zone when we’re struggling to keep _our_ people alive. Do you have any idea—?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, shut _up_ ,” Shouyou interrupts, taking one step forward. His hands slam against the desk, making the ashtray rattle against the wooden surface. “We kinda know what it’s like to try and stay alive in this situation. We’re well aware of how hard it is to survive with those monsters out there. What we don’t _know_ is how you could sit here while there’re people being killed for thinking differently, people getting used as scapegoats to keep a government that doesn’t aim for the greater good.”

“I said I’ve heard rumours, not that I’m aware of the entire picture,” the man replies, pressing his lips into a thin, pale line. “No one stands against the Hospital— not while they have a whole army ready to kill whoever tries to free them.”

“You have _guns_ ,” Shouyou hisses. “We have crossbows, bows and arrows, and knives. I’m sorry but you look more than prepared to take down that entire army.”

“Are you asking me to kill the entirety of the Hospital Number Five?” the man retorts, coldly.

“I’m asking you to help me set them _free_ ,” Shouyou answers, his fingers tense against the desk. “If they’re able to see that there’s no virus anymore, the entire big fishes’ government will crumble. Why do you need an indoctrinated army if there’s nothing to fight for? All those resources they’re spending on keeping the people in the dark could be used to eradicate the infected from the surface— which means the end of every safe zone.”

The man arches his eyebrows, leaning forward as he breathes out the long drag he just took from the cigarette. Shouyou’s eyes burn from it, but he refuses to blink; it feels like showing any sign of weakness in front of this man could send his plan straight to hell.

“Yours is quite an ambitious plan,” he says, slowly. It feels like he’s tasting the syllables. “What’re your names?”

“Hinata Shouyou,” he answers, never averting his gaze.

“Miya Atsumu.”

“Well, Hinata, Atsumu,” the man sighs, almost defeated. “Tell me all you know about the Hospital. If there’s something we can do, I’ll send my best men with you to bring the big fishes down.”

And so Shouyou and Atsumu tell the man —Ukai— everything they know about the Hospital Number Five. The permanent suppressors, the punishments delivered for the smaller and the bigger crimes. How arbitrary they are when it comes to their own laws, the punishment for the bond. How they were planning on using Shouyou as a scapegoat to create a cure that doesn’t exist as they keep the non-existence of the virus hidden so they can keep manipulating the inhabitants of the safe zone. Atsumu tells him how they sent soldier after soldier to hunt Shouyou down and how neither of them came back. How Shouyou saved his life and he later on told him the truth about the virus.

How traumatized he is after what he’s gone through, something that makes Shouyou’s head snap towards him with a slight feeling of betrayal weighing on his stomach. Atsumu doesn’t mention anything else on the topic, but he still feels like he said more than he should have.

Ukai becomes paler and paler with every new fact about the Hospital Number Five. He seems deeply disturbed about the punishment for the bond, about how they’re all separated according to their secondary gender when they turn twelve, and especially grossed out about the permanent suppressors. Every single thing that seems so natural for the both of them seems to terrorize him to no end as he lights up cigarette after cigarette.

When they’re done telling him about the treatment received by marked Omegas, Ukai looks like he’s about to puke. He sighs deeply, massaging his temples with circular motions as if he’s trying to stop a headache that’s just about to begin.

“I had no idea—” he begins. A defeated sigh interrupts him as he leans back against the backrest, his eyes going from Atsumu to Shouyou as if he can’t believe that they’re there, in front of him, telling him about the horrors they both went through while living at the Hospital Number Five. “I didn’t think all the rumours were true.”

“No one ever managed to make it here,” Shouyou comments, shrugging. “I’m still disgusted by your lack of action if you had _at least_ a vague idea of what happened within those walls.”

“There wasn’t much we could do without any inside intel,” he says, finally standing up from his chair. “But we have it now.”

“That means ya gonna help us?” Atsumu asks. The edge of hope that slides under his voice doesn’t go unnoticed to Shouyou. “Ya gonna give us whatever we need to set ‘em free?”

“Yeah,” the man answers, surrounding the desk to stand behind them. Shouyou and Atsumu turn on the soles of his boots, an automatic reaction ingrained into their brains thanks to years upon years of military training. “Including guns and the necessary training to use them. That crossbow of yours,” he continues, pointing at Shouyou’s weapon with the tip of his half-consumed cigarette, “won’t be too useful against real human beings.”

Atsumu frowns.

“I wouldn’t be so sure ‘bout that,” he chuckles. It’s amazing how he manages to frown and chuckle at the same time. “Ya haven’t seen Shouyou-kun in action.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s really good with that thing… but I bet he’s never killed a real human with it before.”

Shouyou begs to disagree. He did kill a real human being with his crossbow before; it was one of the safe zone’s guards. He didn’t manage to knock them unconscious and when he freaked out, he killed them without even thinking about it.

Still, he doesn’t say anything against the statement. There are things about him he would rather Atsumu not know.

“How long were you out there?” Ukai asks.

“Six months together. Shouyou-kun was on his own for a whole year before he saved my life.”

Ukai’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

“So you’re kinda an expert in survival, huh?”

Shouyou clears his throat, pushing the image of the dead guard into the darkest part of his mind. He doesn’t need the scenario coming back to bug him, especially not now.

“You could say that.”

“Great,” Ukai smiles at him, proud of something he didn’t accomplish. “So you’re gonna teach my people how to survive out there, and my people will teach you how to use a gun. Sounds fair?”

_I don’t have any other choice, do I?_

“Yeah, sounds fair.”

Ukai assigns them their rooms and dismisses them with the promise of their training starting tomorrow. He prompts them to eat a nutritious meal, drink some tea, rest as much as they can, and _eat again_ because according to him, they’re just skin and bones. According to Atsumu and Shouyou’s, he’s overreacting.

As Shouyou walks across the threshold of his room, he notices the way his hands are trembling; one year and a half that just reached its peak, somehow putting at the reach of his hands everything he’s been looking for since he left the safe zone. Ukai’s words prompt _hope_ to bloom inside of him like a flower, expanding, ever-growing until there’s isn’t much space left. He feels the weariness of the time he spent out there fall on top of him like a ton of bricks, his muscles sore and aching for something he can’t quite recognize.

Just a little bit more. Just one more push and finally, _finally_ , the nightmare will be over. He didn’t expect it to be so easy, didn’t expect to get Nekoma’s help as fast as he did. And despite that distrustful instinct that tells him he should be wary because things never turn out to be so easy for him, he allows himself to enjoy the taste of success that coats his tongue.

He arrived at the other safe zone _alive,_ he managed to keep Atsumu alive for six months, and he managed to tell the story of his people. There isn’t too much left to ask from life, but there is still quite a lot to do. Funnily enough, the perspective makes him feel exhilarated for the first time in his life; he barely recognizes the feeling, the excitement that fills his stomach with butterflies upon the thought that once he returns to the place he so much wants to call home, he will do so with enough experience, support, and tools to set his family and the other inhabitants of the safe zone free.

His knees go weak just after he throws his backpack on the bed, prompting him to press his back against the wooden door. He slides down until he’s sitting on the floor, his legs stretched and sore complaining about the strain.

“We made it,” he whispers to the empty room. An almost hysteric chuckle leaves his mouth, the stress he’s been living under for months now starting to lift like a fog that has been covering his brain for too long. Shouyou presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, noticing all too late the tears of relief that are streaming down his face. “I can’t believe we made it…”

Somehow he feels like he’ll wake up tomorrow, wrapped up in a blanket while lying beside a campfire, the smell of burning wood seeping into his clothes. The cold floor against his back, the oppressive feeling of being trapped inside of a room without windows. Being at Nekoma feels like it’s too good to be true, and he’s learned throughout his life that things that look too good are usually _not true_.

He sighs, letting his hands fall to his lap. The room is softly illuminated by the pale glow of the winter sun, the bed at the back covered with a duvet that looks comfortable and warm. He’s almost forgotten what it feels like to sleep on a mattress after one year and a half sleeping on hard, cold floors.

Hours go by. He feels like a caged animal now that the initial surprise has passed and he’s gotten enough time to really process everything that’s going on. He goes around the room over and over again, his fingers twitching at his side as the crossbow bounces against his hip with each step. He’s not used to staying still for so long— a few hours are enough to make him feel restless and fidgety.

He decides to clean up the crossbow; the process is monotonous and repetitive, soothing in its own way as the clicks of the mechanism fill the room with each detached component his fingers work on quickly. He’s done this more times than he can count and his crossbow does not need maintenance, but he does it nonetheless: a piece of normality among a new room, a new life, a new future.

Someone knocks on his door and Shouyou startles on the bed and the wax tube falls to the duvet, rolling on it until it stops against his folded knee. His fingers are greasy with the wax and he doesn’t think too much before rubbing his fingertips against the hem of his trousers, carefully placing the crossbow on the bed before standing up and taking a few long strides toward the door.

It isn’t surprising to find Atsumu with his hand still up as if Shouyou had found him about to knock again. There’s a worried expression settled over his features, a slight frown knit in the middle of his forehead as he stares into nothingness.

“Atsumu-san?” Shouyou calls, arching his eyebrows.

“Ah, Shouyou-kun!” he pushes out, blinking as if he’s confused. Upon the sight of Shouyou, a wide smile spreads on his lips, completely erasing the worried grimace he bore when Shouyou opened the door. He seems to light up as if the person in front of him is the best image he could find right now, and something inside of Shouyou’s stomach flops. “I came to check up on ya— how ya doin’?

Shouyou giggles softly.

“Restless,” he answers. Trying to lie to Atsumu is futile and he’s well aware of that fact by now, especially after all the times he’s told him he’s a terrible liar. “I was cleaning up the crossbow.”

Atsumu tilts his entire upper half to the right, peeking through the space left by Shouyou and the threshold of the door until he seems to catch a glance of the crossbow leaning on the bed. He seems both curious and extremely relaxed at the same time.

“That sounds extremely borin’,” Atsumu comments, snickering as he straightens his back. “Wanna come and take a look around?”

“Are we allowed to do that?”

Atsumu smiles like a fox, his half-lidded eyes giving Shouyou a defiant stare as he leans in, invading Shouyou’s personal space like it’s always belonged to him. He slides his hands into his pockets, a glint of mischief glimmering softly on hazel irises.

“Wanna find out?”

The affirmative answer that comes to his mind is way too quick for his liking, but at this point, he’s used to Atsumu’s reckless nature, and more than used to his own addiction to danger. They shouldn’t leave their rooms if they’re not asked to; this isn’t their home. They’re strangers there and the image of two unknown persons strolling around Nekoma could cause problems among the people living there.

Shouyou opens his mouth to answer, pushing the ‘yes’ that weighs on his tongue and invades his head into the darkest corner of his mind. He’s quite sure they’ll get in trouble if they go out of their rooms after being ordered to stay there until their training begins tomorrow morning.

“We can’t, Atsumu-san,” he sighs, defeated. Atsumu deflates, _pouting_ at him. “Ukai-san ordered us to stay in our rooms, remember?”

Atsumu frowns, tilting his head to the right. He’s never looked more like a curious fox than he does now.

“Shouyou-kun,” he begins, chuckling under his breath with an incredulous look on his eyes. “We were dismissed and _shown_ our rooms. We weren’t ordered to stay there.”

“Isn’t it the same?” he asks, genuinely confused.

“’Course not… we’re not at the Hospital anymore. We’re as free here as we were out in the open.”

 _Oh_.

Unsurprisingly, Atsumu is right. He’s not at the Hospital anymore— people around Nekoma don’t work the same way the people back at ‘home’ do. They seem to have a military instruction as well as Shouyou and Atsumu, but they don’t live as soldiers as they do. Back at the Hospital, the military attire was mandatory at every hour and they weren’t supposed to leave their rooms unless asked to.

No one here told them to stay there until someone demanded their presence, no one here ordered to do anything.

The concept of freedom under a superior figure baffles him. The idea seems foreign to his brain and he feels unable to grasp it; he can go wherever he wants? He can do whatever he wants? He can talk to whoever he wants?

Atsumu snaps his fingers in front of his face a few times, positively throwing him face-first back into reality.

“C’mon, snap outta it, Shouyou-kun. We need to get movin’ if we want to see even a fraction of this place.”

As it turns out, Shouyou discovers that Nekoma has underground facilities as well. The three floors seem to be dedicated to scientific investigation, medical procedures, and clothes manufacture. The surface is mostly used to sown and harvest the food eaten by the inhabitants and contrary to the Hospital Number Five, electricity is available for the whole population and not those who occupy higher ranks. They don’t consume military rations and tasteless food produced underground and under ultraviolet lights; everything they eat is natural and harvested by their own people.

During the winter they use ultraviolet lights, too; however, the fact that these crops are watered with rain and not distilled water seems to give them a completely different aspect to the food cultivated back at the Hospital; Shouyou never really knew the harvesting grounds at his safe zone, he only heard rumours about it. And the rumours, as they usually are, were not good at all.

Nekoma’s archives are accessible for every person living within the building; everyone knows everything about the place they live in. They can find out about the amount of food produced every month, about how the electricity is produced in winter as well as in summer. They know the secondary gender of every single person living there and none of them are forced to get the subcutaneous implant they get at the Hospital. They’re also not separated when they turn twelve and their education includes politics, history, and every aspect of survival within and outside the safe zone.

There’s also space for free time; children play among the greenhouses, adults read while sitting on the hallways. Everyone talks to everyone and the image of an Alpha laughing her ass off with a Beta makes Shouyou feel slightly out of place. Everything here seems to be so different to the Hospital that he can’t really wrap his mind around it: people here are as free as it gets in the current situation of the world, without anyone barking orders at them.

When Shouyou sees a couple of Betas kissing, he looks away. It makes him feel uncomfortable— _fraternization,_ screams his brain. _Forbidden_.

Atsumu, however, whistles.

“Oh, now _that’s_ what I call havin’ fun,” he chuckles, giving Shouyou a sideways glance when he notices he’s way too quiet. He’s ashamed at the blush covering his cheeks as he stares back at him, trying to be defiant but only managing to feel like a petulant child. “What’s up? Ya uncomfortable with PDA?”

“Well,” he begins, clearing his throat. “It’s not like I saw a lot of it back at the Hospital.”

Atsumu hums, nodding almost absentmindedly. Shouyou recoils slightly; he’s an adult in a lot of ways but is also still a child in many others. Sexuality, couples, kissing— all that stuff makes him feel out of place and uncomfortable. Despite how hard he’s been fighting against the brainwash, he still can’t shake off the feeling that touching someone else like _that_ is wrong. The idea of kissing someone, having _sex_ with someone, is still something that could lead him to a punishment. Or at least, that’s how his brain sees it.

It’s gonna take time, even years, for him to finally accept that falling in love and having sex is a natural part of being human, just like fear and emotions in general are.

“Yah, yer right,” Atsumu sighs a few heartbeats later. He looks pensive as Shouyou looks at him through an insecure squint, almost waiting for him to mock him. He’s well aware that Atsumu would never do such a thing, but insecurities are as logical as fears. “Wanna go somewhere else?”

Sometimes, Shouyou feels like Atsumu is too good to him. The amount of times he threatened to kill him, the way he used to treat him when they first met— it feels like he’s undeserving of his kindness. And yet, he basks in it like the selfish creature he is. Atsumu is entitled to hate him as much as Shouyou used to hate him at the beginning; he doesn’t do it, however. Shouyou suspects it’s because he’s too much of a good person to hate someone.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

Shouyou and Atsumu spend hours upon hours strolling through the vast grounds of Nekoma; they take a quick look inside of the greenhouse, giggling like children when the thought that they shouldn’t be doing that pops up into their minds; it somehow feels like getting some of that stolen childhood back.

Atsumu is eager to see everything, especially the shooting range; with a sly smirk, full of himself as he leans into Shouyou’s personal space, he comments on how he could manage to hit the bulls-eye from the other side of the shooting range _faster_ than their guns with a single knife.

Shouyou snorts at his bragging, smiling from ear to ear before telling him that he could hit the bulls-eye twice with his crossbow while Atsumu is pulling out his first knife.

The sun is setting over the horizon, painting the sky with reds and pinks when they make it back to their rooms. Atsumu is standing under the threshold of his open door, following Shouyou’s moves as he opens the door to his own room; they stare at each other for a few seconds before Shouyou clears his throat, grinning at him.

“Night, Atsumu-san.”

“G’night, Shouyou-kun,” he answers, a wide smile spreading on his lips. The outer corners of his eyelids wrinkle and Shouyou is surprised to find that this smile does reach his eyes. He hadn’t noticed it before, too focused on staying alive to pay attention to such small details. The image makes something akin to butterflies rise in his stomach.

He blushes a little before entering his room, closing the door behind his back as if putting a period after a long sentence. There’s something _weird_ going on with his heart and he presses his right hand against the left side of his chest, feeling the erratic beating that hits the inside of his ribcage like he’s been running for hours.

Shouyou recognizes the _symptoms_ and he refuses to acknowledge what his brain and his most basic instinct are telling him. He does _not_ have a—

“Stupid,” he scolds himself, scowling at the wooden floor in front of him. He can’t waste time— he’s done so more than enough for a life and a half. Shouyou knows feelings are a distraction, some sort of trap carefully prepared by one’s heart. If he falls into it, if he falls for whatever his instincts are asking, he’ll be done for good. He needs a clear mind to finish what he started a year and a half ago.

With a few long strides, Shouyou reaches the windows and closes the curtains. Darkness devours the room, turning the bed, the nightstand, and the closet into blurry shapes that look like crouched infected waiting for him to get distracted.

The thought sends a shiver of fear down his spine as he slowly starts to get rid of his clothes. The laces of his boots whistle as he pulls from them and they slide against the eyelets, loosening the calf with a sigh of relief.

He kicks them off as he fumbles to pop the button of his trousers. He curses under his breath when he almost misses his step and angrily kicks off the piece of clothing as it had offended him terribly. He doesn’t know where his trousers are now.

Realizing he has _feelings_ and said feelings cause _physical things_ sours his mood. Not because of the fact itself but because of the possible consequences those feelings might have. Getting distracted while he’s fighting an infected and subsequently putting his and Atsumu’s life in danger is the biggest of his concerns.

He’s also still fighting against the deeply-ingrained idea that romantic feelings are forbidden. It’s inevitable for him to see _fraternization_ only as the consequences it can cause, despite being very well aware that here in Nekoma, those things don’t matter.

He doubts he ever gets to see romantic feelings under a different light, even if his own feelings are being taken into account. The perspective of harbouring such things toward Atsumu is quite logical in itself, given all the time they spent together and the things they went through —and _especially_ since he’s the only person out of his family he trusts with no hesitation—, but it still makes the sirens in his head go off. Feelings aren’t logical and he should be used to it by now. Feelings are _natural_ and he should not be denying himself something natural, as well as he shouldn’t deny himself fear or something as biological as his heat.

What mess did he get into?

When he slides into the bed, he feels restless and uncomfortable. He’s so used to sleeping on the floor that the soft mattress underneath his body feels like a bubble that will burst at any given moment. He turns around a few times before laying on his back, fixing his eyes on the ceiling; it’s weird how this bed should be comfortable but it just makes him feel more tired and sore. With a sigh, he kicks off the covers and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress, his naked feet pressing against the cold floor underneath.

He stands up and surrounds the bed, pulling at the covers until the extreme slides from under the mattress. Shouyou throws the blankets, the sheets and the duvet to the floor, doing the same with the pillow before he folds his body and wraps himself up, sighing in content.

Shouyou falls asleep almost immediately.

He wakes up the next morning with someone knocking on his door. Shouyou startles in his place, wrapped in his blankets like a caterpillar in its cocoon, his eyelids fluttering open as he tries to focus his eyes on the door. He feels disoriented at the stream of pale sunlight that bathes his face through the curtains and at the lack of smoke before he remembers where he is.

With a groan of effort, Shouyou disentangles himself from the covers and stretches his back until he hears the vertebrae popping. His shoulder complains at the strain but he does his best to ignore it, standing up on unstable feet before paddling toward the door.

Just like yesterday, he isn’t surprised to find Atsumu on the other side. What does surprise him, however, is the presence of the cat-eyed guy beside him, staring into nothingness with a deadpan expression before turning his gaze toward him.

“G’mornin’, Shouyou-kun!” Atsumu greets cheerfully, a wide smile spreading on his lips. “Kozume-san over here wanted to wake ya up himself but I told him it was a _really_ bad idea.”

“Just call me Kenma,” he pleads, almost exasperated as he casts a glance towards Atsumu like he’s the stubbed toe of his existence. Shouyou can relate; he felt the same way during their first weeks of travelling together.

Shouyou frowns slightly. Isn’t that… disrespectful? Calling someone by their given name without attaching the honorific to it when they just met?

“So,” Shouyou begins, clearing his throat. “Just… Kenma?”

He nods, giving Shouyou a tiny smile, a gesture that seems so soft it’s almost not there.

“Okay,” he says, still frowning. “Kenma.”

“You’re Shouyou, right?” Kenma asks, tilting his head to the right. He reminds Shouyou of the wild cats he encountered while hunting in the forests; the same eyes looking at him, analysing him, tearing his very being apart as if he’s trying to understand the very atoms that form him. “You’ve made quite an impression around here.”

Shouyou blinks in confusion, casting a sideways glance towards Atsumu as if he’s trying to ask for his help to get out of the weird situation he finds himself in. Being the centre of attention usually means he did something wrong— that’s how things used to be at the Hospital. Even though he knows things aren’t the same here, he still struggles.

“How come?”

“An Omega travelling on his own for an entire year?” Kenma drawls on, almost pleased. “Saving an Alpha’s life on top of that? That’s some unusual story. Especially given the place you come from.”

He tenses upon the mention of the Hospital, swallowing the instinctive snarl that pushes its way up his throat. The mere thought of that place seems to trigger his fight or flight response and he hates the effect the safe zone has on him.

“News seems to travel fast around here,” he comments. Atsumu seems to notice the tense edge sliding under his voice, a curious look in his eyes when he casts a glance in his direction. He clears his throat before trying to speak up again, discovering his throat uncomfortably tight. “So? Do you need anything?”

Kenma blinks in his direction.

“We’re about to start training.”

“Oh.”

“Kenma, why dontcha go ahead? Shouyou-kun is still half asleep and he doesn’t function until he’s fully awake,” Atsumu suggests, smiling at Kenma. Shouyou almost feels sorry for him; it looks like he’s aiming all his charms directly at him, letting all the weight of his fox-like smile fall on top of Kenma’s thin shoulders. “We’ll be at the shootin’ range in a while.”

Kenma, however, seems unfazed by something that would make Shouyou’s entire world turn upside down. He doesn’t pity him anymore; he’s jealous. To be unaffected by Atsumu and his natural charms is something he can’t even dream about, especially after realizing his feelings for him.

“Don’t be late,” Kenma suggests softly. “Your instructor doesn’t like people who don’t know how to follow schedules.”

With that, he turns on the soles of his shoes and walks away, letting both of them standing there with a confused expression on their faces. Atsumu blinks as he follows Kenma’s path down the hallway, frowning slightly as he clicks his tongue.

“Who the hell is this guy?” he whispers before turning to Shouyou. His expression changes from heaven to earth as a wide smile curls up the corners of his mouth, hazel eyes going from Shouyou’s face to the interior of his room. When he finds the blankets on the floor, he scowls. “Shouyou-kun, didja sleep on the floor?”

Shouyou jumps in his spot, almost as if Atsumu caught him red-handed. He wasn’t doing anything bad, however; it feels like Atsumu can see too much of him like he already knows why he slept on the floor.

“I couldn’t sleep on the bed,” he complains, crossing his arms on his chest just to hide the fact that his fingers tremble slightly. Atsumu purses his lips, arching his eyebrows as if he’s waiting for an explanation he doesn’t need. “The mattress made me feel uncomfortable.”

Atsumu blinks a few times in his direction before an almost pained expression settles itself over his features. Shouyou is well aware that he already knew why he slept on the floor, but he didn’t think it would make him feel as bad as his eyes seem to tell.

“Ya got too used to sleep on the floor, didntcha?” he asks. It’s more of a statement than an actual question, but the way he voices it prompts Shouyou to answer.

“Yeah,” is all he says before clearing his throat. “I’m gonna change now. Meet you at the shooting range?”

Atsumu nods.

“Take yer crossbow,” he suggests with a wink.

The shooting range is on the surface, as are almost all the things at Nekoma. It’s a long rectangle surrounded by a tall fence, crowned with curl after curl of barbed wire that shines deadly underneath the pale winter sunlight. The ground underneath Shouyou’s boots doesn’t feel like normal concrete, and the reddish colour, almost brown, makes him frown. He’s not used to this.

Ukai waits on the furthest extreme of the shooting range, his arms crossed over his chest. As Atsumu and Shouyou go closer to him, a tiny smile spreads on his face; he looks genuinely happy to see them, almost relieved, as if he didn’t think they would show up.

A stranger is standing beside him, kicking imaginary rocks with his left feet, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he stares down at the ground without ever taking his eyes out of it. He doesn’t seem to register their presence once they arrive at their position and Ukai greets them good morning, and he only looks up at them when Ukai introduces them.

“Hinata, Atsumu,” he begins, pointing at the stranger beside him. He’s wearing a facemask that hides the half of his face, letting only a black pair of eyes on sight; he’s _tall_ , even taller than Atsumu, and he doesn’t smell of anything. Shouyou recognizes the lack of scent as a sign of being in front of a Beta. “This is Sakusa Kiyoomi. He’ll be your instructor.”

Sakusa’s black eyes go from Atsumu to Shouyou, analysing every bit of evidence about them he can gather. His gaze lingers longer than needed on their old clothes; on the bloodstains, the rips on the knees of Atsumu’s trousers. When he frowns, Shouyou gets to the conclusion that he doesn’t like what he sees.

“Mister Omega from the Hospital Number Five, huh?” is the first thing he says. He blinks slowly at them before turning his stare to Atsumu. Shouyou can almost see the smirk behind the facemask. “And mister An Omega Saved My Life.”

“A pleasure to meetcha, Omi-kun,” Atsumu greets, smiling at him. Shouyou’s back tenses; that’s the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “How ya doin’?”

Sakusa doesn’t seem to like the nickname, but he doesn’t comment on it. His eyes fix on the crossbow hanging against Shouyou’s hips as he arches his eyebrows with half an expression of curiosity.

“Tell me, Hinata,” he begins, slowly, almost carefully as if he’s weighing the words on his tongue. “Are you any good with that thing?”

Shouyou grins.

“Wanna see?” he offers. It’s not a kind offering; it’s one to show his value as a soldier. Useless and empty in a safe zone that doesn’t value the same things as the Hospital does, but he still has the need of showing both Sakusa and Ukai just how good he is with his weapon.

Sakusa frowns.

“Be my guest.”

Shouyou crosses the distance between his current position and the firing lanes, stopping in front of the lane that’s closest to him. Quick fingers work on getting the bolt, adjusting it over the rail against the tensed serving before he lifts it and presses the stock against his shoulder.

It feels like he constantly has to prove himself in front of these people. The thought alone makes rage boil in the pit of his stomach, sending a violent wave of frustration toward his arm, his finger tensing against the trigger and the serving sending the bolt forward.

It whistles through the target retrieval carriers and hits the bulls-eye on the head of the target. He can still feel the recoil vibrating through his bones as he takes in a sharp inhale, turning on the soles of his boots to give Sakusa a conceited smile. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the gesture, but Shouyou doesn’t mind. According to him, he’s proven himself in the eyes of Nekoma enough times already.

“Let’s see if you’re this good with a gun,” Sakusa comments. “Miya, what weapons do you use?”

Atsumu gives him a smirk as his right hand palms the strap around his thigh, Sakusa’s black eyes falling on the shiny knives attached to it. He raises his eyebrows with interest and disbelief like he doesn’t trust Atsumu’s abilities with the knives.

“So?” he prompts, looking at him with defiance in his eyes. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Shouyou has seen Atsumu in action several times already; ever since he managed to hit the first rabbit he hunted in between the eyes, he’s been amazed by his skills. He seems to have a sharper sight than Shouyou, and he proves it right then and there when he slides the first knife off of its resting place, making the weapon turn in between his fingers before he throws it across the target retrieval carriers.

He doesn’t need to look to see the knife hitting the bulls-eye; he just hears the deaf noise of the tip hitting the wood behind the target and he smiles up at Sakusa, taking pride in something he didn’t do.

Sakusa seems to smirk under the facemask.

“Well,” he begins. He moves his hand behind his back, lifting the edge of his jacket before retrieving a pistol. It looks as deadly in between his hands as it did in between Oikawa’s, and Shouyou’s fight or flight response seems to tickle at the back of his neck. “Use this.”

Their first lesson consists, basically, on getting used to the weight of the pistol. It’s a whole new world compared to his crossbow, and he’s sure it’s a bit more difficult for Atsumu to get used to it since his knives are several times lighter than the crossbow. However, they both manage to get the hang of it by the end of their training session; Shouyou is already able to charge it without even looking, to pull from the hammer to allow the next bullet to go into the barrel and _shoot_.

The recoil has nothing to do with that of the crossbow; it’s a whole universe apart. There where the crossbow injects adrenaline straight to his bloodstream, the pistol makes a wave of electricity crackle through his nerve ends, numbing his hands and his arms as he takes in a sharp inhale. The recoil alone reminds him of how lethal the thing in between his hands is, how this is a sign of power and _rank_. If the big fishes could see him taking aim with one of those, they would throw him into a cell and let him there to rot for life.

Sakusa and Ukai seem genuinely surprised at how fast they learn to use the pistols and even more at how skilled they both are with them. It only takes them a few attempts to hit the bulls-eye without missing and despite the sense of pride that blossoms in his chest, Shouyou can’t help but think that they were both raised to be killing machines. They don’t need pistols to be dangerous. They’ve been this dangerous since they were teenagers.

Once their training is over, it’s time for Shouyou and Atsumu to teach them how to _survive_. Shouyou doesn’t know how to teach them such a thing without being out in the open; how can you show a bunch of people how to recognize the trail left by a prey if you’re not seeing it? How can you teach them how to tell the poisonous herbs from the safe ones?

“Ukai-san,” Shouyou says once they’ve reached the classroom. _Classroom_. It feels weird to know that he will be the one directing the lesson. “I can’t teach them these things here.”

Ukai arches his eyebrows.

“You wanna take them out?” he drawls on, carefully. He doesn’t seem convinced about Shouyou’s idea, and he doesn’t seem to feel the same reassurance Shouyou does with Atsumu’s presence behind him. “Hinata, I get your intentions are good. But they’re too many— you won’t be able to protect them all if things go sideways.”

“We still have a few hours of daylight,” he says, shrugging. “And I can’t teach them how to survive if they’re not out in the open.”

“Hinata,” Ukai snaps. Shouyou startles in his spot, looking at him with arched eyebrows. “I can’t let you do that.”

Shouyou scowls, frustrated.

“How do you want me to teach them how to survive if they’ve never had the need to?” he hisses. Atsumu, behind him, clears his throat as if to let him know he’s pushing the limits too much. He ignores him. “If you really want me to teach them, you’re gonna have to do it _my_ way.”

“Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu intercedes, taking a few steps forward to place his left hand on Shouyou’s shoulder. He grimaces when his fingers squeezing slightly send a wave of red, hot pain through his nerves, but he does his best to ignore it. Atsumu is just trying to comfort him; he’s not to blame for the damage done by that infected’s claws. “Ukai-san is right. They’re too many to let ‘em all go at the same time out there… even if there’s still daylight, infected are not the only danger out of the safe zones. Y’know that better than anyone here.”

He sighs in defeat. For having one functioning brain cell left, Atsumu is right more often times than not. Too many times for his liking.

“ _Fine_ ,” he hisses. “But tomorrow you’ll have to let me guide a small group out of the safe zone. Send some of your best men out there with us if you don’t believe Atsumu-san and I can keep them safe.”

Ukai seems to like that idea as much as he liked the other one, but something in his eyes tells Shouyou that he has no counteroffer. After all, Shouyou and Atsumu are the only ones who can teach them from first-hand experience; granted, many soldiers can hold their ground out there, but none of them has ever spent as long in the wild as Shouyou did. Surviving for a few days is one thing and having to survive for long periods of time is another completely different; the first one requires skills, the second one requires mental strength.

“Fine, okay. Fair enough. No more than five.”

Shouyou smirks, despite the frustration that’s building up inside of him.

“That’s all I need.”

The days at Nekoma seem to go by faster than any days Shouyou’s ever seen. A month passes and although he still has problems adjusting to this new freedom, he’s slowly starting to get the hang of it. It’s hard to learn to be his own person after nineteen years of being told when to eat and when to sleep, but he’s trying.

The nightmares, however, are getting worse.

The perspective of going back to the Hospital starts to creep up to him, shuffling closer to him every night. It’s close enough for it to be able to run its fingers up and down his spine, popping each vertebra like if it’s bubble plastic.

He’s used to the dark circles under his eyes by now and how sharp his cheekbones look against his skin. Every time he stares in the mirror, a person that doesn’t look like him stares back. The eyes of the person in his reflection look almost dead because of exhaustion, his skin like alabaster under the hard lights of the fluorescents over his head.

No amount of exercise helps him sleep. The images of his nightmares stick around longer than they did before he arrived at Nekoma, making him lose focus and sharpness. He’s becoming a useless creature, a bit more crippled with each passing day. It’s frustrating and maddening; if he can’t accomplish the _one_ mission Ukai assigned him, what’s he even doing at Nekoma?

He reaches his limit when one of his nightmares includes a very graphic scenario of Atsumu being killed by a bullet to the head.

The image lingers behind his closed eyelids as he hugs his knees to his chest. Somewhere along his dream, he kicked off the blankets and now he’s just sitting there on the floor, shaking as the cold seeps through his skin. The sound of the pistol, provided now by his own experiences, still pierces his eardrums with every beat of his hammering heart.

He wants to scream. His chest feels tight and it’s getting hard to breathe as if there’s a hand surrounding his neck, threatening to crush his windpipe. The air whistles unpleasantly every time he inhales and it feels like his lungs aren’t getting enough air. He feels lightheaded and dizzy and he probably has a panic attack.

When he starts hyperventilating, he confirms his suspicions; he is, in fact, having a panic attack. It’s not the first time he’s experienced, but it’s the first one since he arrived at the safe zone, and the first one he has to go through alone since he found Atsumu on that meadow.

Has he really become _that_ dependent on him?

The idea is almost an afterthought as he gets up and stumbles toward the door, pulling it open to cross the short distance from his room to Atsumu’s. He stops in front of the door, trying to catch his breath, his eyes trying to adjust to the sudden darkness of the hallway.

Should he knock? Atsumu must be fast asleep and he doesn’t want to disrupt his sleep just because he was too much of a coward to suck it up by himself. He’s still surprised at how attached he is to him, how much he’s come to need him over these past months they’ve been together.

Shouyou chews on his lower lip, weighing his options. Atsumu has already noticed there’s something wrong with him, although he hasn’t said anything about it. He always seems to put deep thought into everything he says to Shouyou and there’s no way Shouyou can return half of that care.

He should leave. Go back to bed and try to sleep, try to ignore the images clinging to his eyes like leeches to the skin.

He should—

Shouyou knocks three times on the door.

There’s some fumbling coming from inside the room before he hears Atsumu hissing a few curses under his breath. Shouyou hears his feet paddling against the wooden floor before he pulls the door open, revealing the soft glow of the nightstand lamp bathing the room with a warm yellowish hue. His eyes still look heavy with slumber as he rubs at his left one with his knuckles.

“Shouyou-kun?” he whispers. Atsumu blinks, trying to focus his vision on Shouyou as he leans in, inspecting his expression from up close. “Everythin’ okay?”

Shouyou opens his mouth to answer, ready to tell him that he knocked by mistake, but he closes it a few seconds later without having said anything. Why is he here? Just to make sure his nightmare was only that and that he’s still alive? Because he needs his moral support to get through a panic attack?

“So,” Atsumu begins, once he notices Shouyou won’t say anything. “Ya finally snapped, huh?”

Shouyou tilts his head to the left, a frown of confusion knitting in the middle of his eyebrows. He’s realized he can’t speak for the life of him.

“Don’t give me that look,” he chuckles, stepping aside to give Shouyou enough space to enter the room. He stays in his spot, unable to move. “Ya’ve been feelin’ like shit for weeks now. I was waitin’ for ya to say somethin’.” 

Shouyou doesn’t say anything. He’s unable to, and Atsumu seems to notice this as he throws his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the bed without a single twitch in his expression. He gasps softly, blinking as if he just suggested they had sex, and Atsumu chuckles.

“Don’t worry yer pretty little head,” Atsumu says, smiling at him. “We can sleep on the floor.”

That’s not what he’s worried about, but he just nods and steps into the room, standing there for longer than needed before Atsumu stands beside him, tilting his head so he can look at his whole face.

“Was it a nightmare?” he asks. Shouyou nods. “Wanna talk ‘bout it?”

Shouyou shakes his head. He can’t even speak, how is he even supposed to talk about his nightmare with him? Especially since it was _about_ him.

“I see,” Atsumu hums. “Dja wanna sleep?”

He shakes his head again.

“Want a glass of water?”

Shouyou sincerely doubts he can swallow anything now, so he shakes his head. He’s waiting for the moment Atsumu gives up on the whole thing and calls it a day, telling him to go back to his room so he can fall asleep again. He can almost hear the words being thrown at his face and he relates— he’d be annoyed too.

Atsumu doesn’t seem annoyed, however, and it genuinely surprises him when he just sighs and turns around, pulling at the covers until the extreme slides from under the mattress. He throws the pillow to the ground, followed by the blankets, and then folds his body to sit down cross-legged, gently patting the spot beside him.

“C’mere,” he prompts, smiling. “Sit down and rest a little, wouldja? Ya look like ya haven’t slept in weeks.”

He wants to argue, but he also knows it’s useless. Atsumu shouldn’t have to sleep on the floor again just because he’s having a panic attack and has —apparently— temporarily lost his speech. He shouldn’t have to stay awake because Shouyou had a nightmare… he’s an adult, he should handle it by himself. Why is he bothering Atsumu with something as stupid as this?

“Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu calls, a bit firmer this time. “Sit here.”

It’s not the voice, but Shouyou reacts like it is. His feet move before he notices and he’s sitting at his side before his brain registers what he’s doing. He feels out of place and deeply ashamed; he’s well aware that he shouldn’t feel that way, especially in front of Atsumu, but he can’t help it.

“Ya’ve been awake for too long?” Atsumu asks. His voice is soothing, almost like a caress or the cold water of the river against the sunburned skin.

Shouyou shakes his head. It feels like an eternity, but in reality, he must have been awake no longer than ten minutes. He feels like his entire life repeated itself in that short span.

“Was the nightmare ‘bout the Hospital?”

Shouyou shakes his head again. It’s maddening to be limited to just that as if his body has decided to betray him. Even throughout that whole year he spent on his own, without the need to talk to someone, he didn’t long for the comforting company of _speaking_.

“Was it ‘bout Nekoma?”

Atsumu doesn’t seem surprised when he shakes his head again.

“Was it ‘bout ya?”

One shake.

“Was it ‘bout me?”

He purses his lips, swallowing the thick saliva that has gathered in the back of his throat. His tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth and when he swallows to lubricate, the hand that seems to surround his neck tightens a little more. It’s almost choking him, stripping him from the ability to even breathe properly.

Shouyou nods reluctantly, ashamed of his own fears once again. He expects Atsumu to laugh it off as he always does; to distract him with some stupid joke or a surprisingly wise speech that would seem to get rid of all his worries. He almost craves for it as he waits, impatiently, for him to say something. Anything.

Instead of saying something, Atsumu reaches out, the fingers of his left hand suspended a few centimetres over the back of Shouyou’s hand, almost as if he’s asking for permission.

Another nod and his fingertips graze lightly against his skin.

“’m still here,” he says, voice hoarse and deep. It sounds like he’s having problems speaking and Shouyou has never related to anything more than he does to this. “And ‘m not goin’ anywhere.”

“How are you so sure?” Shouyou asks, finally finding his voice. It comes out raspy like nails on a chalkboard, like broken glass dragging against the pavement. He almost doesn’t recognize it as his own, but the pain in his throat tells him that the croak he just heard does in fact belong to him.

Atsumu hums in approval upon hearing his voice.

“Well, for starters,” he begins, a light chuckle sliding underneath his voice. The sound feels as warm as his fingers against his hand and he sighs in relief; the fact that Atsumu looked —and felt— so serious, so tense, was making him feel like his crisis was something to get worried about. Now that he seems to be back to his normal cheery, almost sarcastic self, Shouyou feels like he’s allowed to relax. “I’ve got a good reason to keep my head outta the line.”

Despite the pain in his throat, Shouyou chuckles, giving him a sideways glance.

“Oh yeah?” he pushes out, ignoring the awful sound of his voice. “And that reason might be…?”

“I’ve got someone who’s scared to death of somethin’ happenin’ to me,” he answers, simply and straightforwardly. He says it just like that as if it’s nothing, as if he hasn’t just implied that the only reason he tries his best to keep himself healthy and safe is Shouyou. “We can’t have that, now can we?”

He blushes slightly. It’s almost liberating to know that Atsumu values him to that point, that he truly cherishes his presence in his life. Enough to stop being the reckless Alpha he met on that meadow, enough to think about Shouyou instead of himself when it comes to his own life.

“Which begs the question,” he goes on, giving Shouyou a curious look. “What happened in that nightmare?”

He swallows. It still hurts.

“You got shot in the head,” he answers, trying his best to separate himself from his own feelings. It’s easier to talk about traumatic events or made-up scenarios when one loses the emotional connection to them. They become foreign like something that happened to someone else. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“I sure hope they left room for an open casket,” Atsumu snickers. Shouyou gasps at the idea, giving him an angry look and a terrible scowl that makes him grimace. “Sorry. A bad joke at a bad time and place.”

“I don’t—” he begins. The words choke him like a lump in his throat and he tries his best to breathe around them, but it’s getting hard to get oxygen. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Atsumu blinks in his direction, genuinely surprised about his honesty. There’s something moving behind his eyes like an unasked question, something that he seems to scared to even voice.

“Nothin’s gonna happen to me, Shouyou-kun,” he murmurs a few heartbeats later. “’m gonna be just fine.”

“But what if you _aren’t_? What if you do something stupid? What if _I_ do something stupid? What if you—”

“And what if a meteor falls and bonks me in the head? What if ‘m not careful enough with one of my knives and I somehow manage to cut my wrists open? What if I decide I can’t do it anymore and just kill myself? What if I get food poisonin’?” he interrupts. His words are as harsh as they always are, but his voice somehow manages to turn them into a soothing cadence that makes Shouyou swallow his own rant. “Life is full of _what-ifs_ , Shouyou-kun. Ya can’t live yer life if yer constantly thinkin’ ‘bout them.”

“You say it as if there’s a life to live,” he snorts. He cringes at his own words; too eerie, too grim. Too honest.

“I mean, there is one. It’s just hard and… painful. And I get it if yer tired— god knows I am too. But…”

He leaves the sentence unfinished, prompting a curious look from Shouyou.

“But?” he presses.

“But whenever I look at ya and think ‘bout how much ya went through… I think the pain is worth it.”

“What can you possibly see in me that makes you think life is worth it in this world?”

“Yer existence is enough.”

Shouyou notices the weight of his words, and despite the oppressive feeling clutching his chest, he can’t say he doesn’t enjoy it. He blushes, blinking at Atsumu with a dumbfounded expression on his face, trying with all his might to not look as embarrassed as he feels.

He fails miserably.

“That was extremely sappy,” he jokes, nervously, almost hysterically. The only things he’s trying to do is to divert the attention from himself and his reaction to Atsumu’s words, and by the smirk that he gives him, Atsumu noticed before Shouyou himself thought about it.

“Well, that’s how I feel,” he declares, shrugging.

“So you’re basically telling me you’re in love with me?” Shouyou jokes. He tries to sound as deadpan as he can manage, knowing damn well that he’s not accomplishing his self-imposed mission. The perspective seems to open a void inside of him, the emptiness replacing his insides as he breathes in. It’s not unpleasant, however; it feels like falling eternally into something that he characterizes as _warm_.

Atsumu chuckles under his breath, an almost mysterious smile spreading across his lips. Shouyou blinks at him, trying to decipher that thing he manages to see moving behind his eyes, but it’s gone before he can get a good look at it again.

“Who knows?” he answers, finally, shrugging. Shouyou wants to smack him. “Maybe I am.”

He frowns. What sort of confession is this? His hand tenses under Atsumu’s fingers, his eyes searching for something on his face that tells him that yes, he is in fact being serious, that he’s not joking just to brighten up his mood.

“This is serious, Atsumu,” he hisses, frowning. It’s not a good time to do this and he knows; he’s perfectly aware of how emotionally unstable he is right now, he’s perfectly aware that he’s currently on the edge of another panic attack because things are not clear and the last thing he needs right now is a riddle. “Are you or _are you not_ in love with me?”

Atsumu arches his eyebrows, noticing that Shouyou didn’t attach the honorific at the end of his given name. An almost soft smile curls up the corners of his mouth as his hand finally covers Shouyou’s, giving it a light, tender squeeze.

“Is it important to ya to know if I am?” he asks. It’s almost like he’s asking for consent to tell him something he kind of already said.

Shouyou takes a sharp inhale.

“Yes. It is.”

“I am,” he answers, straightforwardly and without hesitation. There’s not a single trace of a joke in his voice, as serious as it was when he was talking about the what-ifs of life. It throws Shouyou off to see an Alpha, someone who’s supposed to fight his feelings even more than he does, admitting them so freely; he’s not ashamed of them and Shouyou is jealous in so many ways that he can’t even begin to comprehend them all. “But ya don’t have to say anythin’. Not unless yer ready or ya really want to.”

Shouyou does want to answer his confession. To tell him that he feels the same, that the fear of losing him is deeply rooted in the romantic feelings he’s developed toward him throughout these months they’ve spent together.

And yet, he doesn’t say anything. Despite wanting to, he’s not ready to voice his feelings. It’s too soon after finding out about them, too soon after a nightmare he wishes it would have never happened.

“Thank you,” he says instead of all of the things he really wants to say.

Atsumu gives his fingers a new tender squeeze, smiling at him like he’s the best thing to ever happen to him.

“Yer welcome, Shouyou.”

He doesn’t attach the honorific to his given name either.

To take care of his mental health, Shouyou decides to not give the lessons for a few days. He talks about it with Atsumu, revealing his fear of not being useful for Nekoma now that he refuses to do the only thing he’s still here for. Atsumu just smiles at him, telling him that his value doesn’t find its foundations on how useful he is here. He seems to have adopted the task of reminding him how they’re not at the Hospital as his own personal duty, some self-imposed mission he’s willing to go to the ends of the earth for. Shouyou is deeply thankful for it.

Weeks go by. Once he’s gotten a bit better, he starts to take groups of five out of the safe zone every day. He teaches them as strictly and firmly as he taught Atsumu, giving them piece after piece of knowledge through practice itself.

They’re quite good at it; their military training seems to be on the same level as the Hospital’s, their abilities with knives and weapons as almost as good as Shouyou and Atsumu’s themselves. Shouyou, however, thinks they lack the ferocity needed to grit your teeth and do whatever it takes to survive. He hopes they acquire it little by little with his teaching.

His mental health starts to get better at an amazing speed; he still has nightmares, still has panic attacks, but now that he knows that he can slide into Atsumu’s room every time he feels in need of contention, things have gotten a bit easier. Atsumu doesn’t mind; he always welcomes him with open arms, a smile, and words of reassurance.

He’s starting to get used to his freedom, to the number of people that talk to him on a daily basis. Back at the Hospital, no one ever talked to anyone if it wasn’t strictly needed; making friends was hard under the constant watch of the other soldiers, always ready to tell the superiors of someone was doing something suspicious. Here, however, he realizes that people gravitate toward him almost inevitably, greeting him warmly, giving him kind words, asking him things about next day’s lesson. He’s surprised when he realizes he’s starting to develop some sort of friendship with Kenma, and equally surprised when Sakusa comments how he «doesn’t find his existence as annoying as the rest’s».

His relationship with Atsumu seems to evolve slowly. They seem to be dancing on the edge that divides friendship and something else, getting closer with each passing day despite how much Shouyou still fears the possible repercussions of his actions and despite how many times a day he needs to remind himself that no one is gonna throw him in jail for falling in love with someone.

It’s not like Atsumu is the only thing on his mind, although he does occupy a pretty big chunk of his thoughts. Little by little, the uncomfortable and uneasy feeling regarding his relationship with him starts to vanish, subduing slowly, always at a constant pace that helps him to not overthink whatever is going on in between them.

Shouyou might not have confessed back, but it looks like Atsumu already knows about his feelings. That or he’s making tiny advances to make Shouyou fall for him; holding his hand, ruffling his hair, tucking a stray orange strand behind his ear. And he finds himself unable to stop him because he doesn’t want to— he allows his advances, welcoming them with open arms and a genuine smile on his face.

His problems don’t vanish because he’s in love, of course. They just seem to be under a different light, a kinder, softer one that tells him that maybe, _maybe_ , if Atsumu is by his side, he can push through whatever life throws at him.

Their first kiss occurs one afternoon after they’re done training with Sakusa; they’re sitting on the floor of Shouyou’s room, wet hair still dripping water onto their shirts as their shoulders press together, brushing lightly with an electrified feeling that snaps through Shouyou’s nerves. Despite the heat that coils in his stomach and the gravity-like feeling that pulls him into Atsumu’s space, he tries to play it cool, keeping up the conversation as slickly as he can manage.

Atsumu, of course, notices. It’s not a surprise that he does: Shouyou can smell the pheromones overcoming the lime scent of the soap, oozing from him like blood flowing from an open wound. He smells Atsumu’s, too. His scent tells stories of desire and longing, and its meaning almost rips a whimper out of his lips.

He almost doesn’t notice the moment when they turn to face each other, too focused on the words coming out of his mouth and the content of their talk itself. Shouyou is leaning into his personal space, albeit unknowingly, and he only realizes what he’s doing when Atsumu’s thumb brushes against the freckles dusted on the highest angle of his cheekbone.

“Shouyou,” he begins, giving him a half-lidded stare of those hazel eyes that seem to _burn_ with desire. “What’re ya doin’?”

He startles on his spot, swallowing hard. His tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth when his eyes follow the motion of Atsumu’s lips, _oh-so-tempting_ and glimmering softly with a thin patina of saliva. Shouyou has never kissed anyone, but god knows he wants that first time to happen right here.

Still, he hesitates before opening up his mouth to speak, closing it a few heartbeats later without having said anything.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He feels like he’s in a haze, dazzled by the image of Atsumu under the soft, pale light of the winter sun. “I just—”

“If ya want somethin’, just _tell me_ ,” Atsumu pushes out. His voice is raspy and hoarse, a soft baritone that vibrates in the space between them.

“I don’t…” he begins, swallowing again. “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

Atsumu chuckles, a breathy sound that sends a shiver down Shouyou’s spine. He pushes down the needy whine that crawls its way up his throat, refusing to sound like _that_.

“Shouyou, ya don’t have to hold back. Not with me, not if ya want somethin’.”

He chokes on his own breath.

“We can’t,” he manages to say through dry lips. He licks at them, almost imagining the taste of Atsumu’s against him, his mind and feelings betraying the most logical part of him. “It’s dangerous— what if we’re out there and one of us gets distracted ‘cause of the other?”

Yes. _Yes_ , that sounds perfectly feasible. It’s a dangerous world out there; they both know it. They can’t dare to avert their eyes, to get distracted in the face of danger. It could cost them their lives, and Shouyou is not willing, under any circumstance, to put Atsumu’s life at risk. He would never let himself live it down.

Atsumu leans in too, invading Shouyou’s personal space with a lopsided grin and hooded eyes that seem to call to him, pulling him so he gives in to what he truly desires. It’s hard to keep his eyes off of Atsumu’s mouth; it feels like they’re the centre of his face, the axis in which his whole world turns round and round and he can’t—

“Please stop bein’ the voice of reason for five minutes,” Atsumu pleads. His breath ghosts over Shouyou’s damp lips, heat coiling in his belly as the desire of leaning in starts to burn through him, consuming everything on its path. His fingers are pleasantly warm as his hands frame his face, his thumbs brushing over the freckles dusted on the highest angle of his cheekbones. “Just— follow yer instinct for once.”

Shouyou blinks up at him, dazzled and confused. The things he wants and the things he knows he shouldn’t be doing mix and become an undecipherable whirlpool of colour and sensation, making his head spin.

“Please,” Shouyou begs, shivering at the thought of finally giving in to the desire that burns in his chest, coiling in his stomach, swirling through his bloodstream. He wants nothing but to pull Atsumu in, to let him kiss him stupid, to let his hands roam every centimetre of his body until there’s nothing unexplored— but he shouldn’t. “Please Atsumu… I’m not that strong.”

None of them should allow such a distraction. If they move forward, they could become the death of the other. Their Achilles’ heel, their weakest point— Shouyou blinks again. He’s just going over the same metaphors in his head as a meaning to get distracted from the desire burning across his body. 

Atsumu smiles tenderly.

“Who says ya need to be?”

Shouyou knows he’s not using the voice and yet, he feels the almost unstoppable need of giving in. It’s so tempting and he’s so close— should he just get what he wants? He’s learned out here that the world tends to take what you want and turn it into your worst nightmare. He doesn’t have any actual reason to keep fighting what they both know they’re feeling, but Shouyou is still in doubt. He doesn’t need any more nightmares added to the never-ending list of things that frighten him.

“I—” he begins. He swallows the thick saliva that has gathered in the back of his throat and tries again. “I say so.”

Atsumu chuckles, a sound that sends a shiver down Shouyou’s back. He adores the sound of his laughter and it feels like he’s never going to get enough of it.

“Yer not on yer on anymore, remember?” Atsumu purrs. The sound is almost sinful and Shouyou notices all too late the lump in his throat. “Dja want it?”

Shouyou blinks, confused by the red fog that seems to hang over his brain. He’s not only confused beyond his own understanding, but he’s also extremely turned on and he doesn’t know what to do with all of those things. It’s the first time he experiences something like this and truth be told, he doesn’t know how to proceed from here on.

“Want… what?” he manages to push out. His voice is hoarse and his tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. Atsumu’s body is extremely hot, even from that distance, his warmth seeping through his clothes and into his skin. He wants to bask in it, to drown himself in it. And yet, he hesitates. It feels like he’s pressed flush against him, every curve, flat, and angle fitting like the pieces of a puzzle.

“Me,” is the short, simple answer Atsumu delivers. Shouyou’s half-lidded eyes look for Atsumu’s and when their stares meet, he rediscovers the desire burning behind hazel irises. It’s like a fire fed with gasoline. He shivers underneath the heavy gaze. “‘Cause ‘m sure as hell I wantcha.”

_Oh._

It feels like every single one of Shouyou’s arguments to refuse to give in to the temptation disappear as if they’d never been there in the first place. It only takes a few words, spoken with a sultry voice and a look of desire burning behind those eyes he’s seen more than once in his dreams to tear every defence mechanism apart. Every syllable feels like a hammer hitting against the walls he’s built around himself to protect his mental health and his heart until they crumble, leaving him exposed and yearning.

“Yes,” he whimpers. He’s well aware of how ashamed he should feel about that sound, but he can’t bring himself to care when he notices the tension in Atsumu’s fingers, the almost animalistic growl that seems to choke him for a few seconds.

“Then?” Atsumu presses. “Whatcha waitin’ for?”

What is he waiting for? Consent? He already has it.

“Atsumu,” Shouyou sighs, his eyelids fluttering like butterflies as he tries to focus his stare on his face. “ _Please_ kiss me stupid.”

And so he does. He kisses him with hunger, consuming all of him until what’s left of Shouyou is a whimpering, yearning mess. His fingers entangle on Atsumu’s hair, pulling from it so the non-existent distance between them ceases to exist completely, letting out a needy groan as Atsumu leans in a bit more, his body pushing against him until he’s lying flat on his back.

Atsumu’s weight presses him against the wooden, pleasantly cold floor in the best way possible. He kisses him until he can’t breathe, until his head is spinning and his thoughts are a blurry mess of incomplete ideas and words that hold no meaning at all. It’s almost overwhelming, especially because Atsumu seems to know exactly what he wants— his hand roams across the damp skin of his stomach, ripping a surprised gasp out of his throat.

“Just—” he starts. Shouyou can almost see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck. “Tell me if ya want me to stop.”

Shouyou chuckles despite himself.

“ _Please_ don’t stop.”

And Atsumu doesn’t stop.

No one is surprised at the bite mark on the back of Shouyou’s neck despite how angry and bloody it looks. They know it’s normal; the wound will take a few days to heal and he only needs to keep it clean and uncovered. He doesn’t need his choker anymore.

No one is surprised, either, when they both announce they need to go back to the Hospital Number Five; they’ve stayed too long at Nekoma and time is running out. Ukai, however, asks them to wait— it’s still too soon after the bond and he’s not done selecting the men that will go with them.

Shouyou tells him they can catch up; since they own a few vehicles they usually drive to get supplies now that they’ve emptied every single location close to Nekoma, it would be easier if they just started making their way toward the Hospital and the people from Nekoma picked up halfway.

Ukai doesn’t seem too prone to the idea; it implies leaving Atsumu and Shouyou out there without protection. Shouyou sees how wary he is about the whole ordeal and he understands— however, they both spent half a year out there and made it to the safe zone _alive_. Granted, they had more than a few problems and more than a few _scratches_ , but they managed to survive nonetheless.

Atsumu argues that having more people travelling with them _all the time_ could slow them down; they already have a smooth-working system, short-paths that can only be transited by a few individuals at the time, and their preferred places for hunting. Too many people could scare off the prey, and neither of them is willing to go hungry, let alone having a group of men not used to it going hungry too.

In the end, Ukai agrees reluctantly. He still asks them to wait a few days more, enough for Shouyou’s mark to heal a bit more, and they decide to stay three days more at Nekoma just so they can get ready for their trip. Gathering food, first aid supplies, one pistol for each, and enough cartridges to take down at least fifty people.

Ukai gives them the list of men that will pick them up and take them to the safe zone; a total of five individuals whose names Shouyou doesn’t really recognize. Not all of them, at least. He recognizes Sakusa, Kenma, and Oikawa, but there are two more that don’t ring any bell: Bokuto Koutarou and Ushijima Wakatoshi.

“So?” Shouyou asks, holding the paper in between his hands, scanning the names with an evaluative look. His eyes lift from the list, fixing on Ukai. “Who’re these two?”

Ukai gives him a proud smirk as he takes a long drag of his cigarette, the acrid smell of burnt paper prickling in Shouyou’s sensitive nose. He should be used to tobacco’s smell by now, but the fact that it covers Ukai’s Beta scent makes him feel uneasy. He doesn’t like it when things hide important facts.

“Bokuto and Ushijima are two of Nekoma’s best,” he says. “Alphas.”

Shouyou scrunches his nose at the thought. He might be in love with an Alpha and have a bond with one, but that doesn’t mean he’s past his problems with them. He still despises their kind.

“You do realize I’m not comfortable around too many Alphas, don’t you?” he asks, flatly. Ukai is well aware of his wariness toward Alphas and the fact that he decided to send so many on this mission doesn’t sit right with him.

“They’re just two, Hinata,” Ukai answers, scowling. “You don’t have any problem with Atsumu now… I thought it might be good for you if you started interacting more with his kind.”

Shouyou arches his eyebrows, giving Ukai a deadpan stare that seems to make him tense. He knew how high the chances of having more Alphas around on the mission were, but that doesn’t mean he feels comfortable with the idea. Especially because of the way Ukai seems to see the topic.

Atsumu is in a whole different category; it took literal months for Shouyou to trust him enough to let him use his crossbow. It took Atsumu nursing him back to health when his attempted heat hit for him to stop calling him _Alpha_. It took Atsumu saving his life to tell him the truth about the world they’re living in. It will probably take _years_ for Shouyou to trust two Alphas he’s never seen in his life.

Ukai can’t really expect Shouyou to respect Bokuto or Ushijima right off the bat; it’s too unrealistic, almost naïve. Especially since he doesn’t know if they’re aware of his _rules_.

“They do know that if they use the voice with me _I will_ put a bolt in between their eyes,” he asks, folding the paper and sliding it into his pocket. He still has to go over the list and the main characteristics of each individual to assign them their personal missions and he refuses to do so in front of Ukai. He also needs to discuss it with Atsumu. “Ukai-san, it’s not a secret that I hate Alphas. Are you sure you want to put them in danger?”

Ukai blinks.

“You’d kill one of my people?”

Shouyou presses his lips into a thin, pale line.

“If they put Atsumu or the mission in danger? If they try to boss me around? If they annoy me too much? Yeah, I totally would,” he shoots, fixing his eyes on Ukai’s. He _needs_ to know just how far Shouyou is willing to go for the people he loves, even if he puts his alliance with Nekoma on the line while doing so.

He sighs, letting the cigarette hang from in between his lips, massaging his temples with circular motions as if he’s trying to get rid of a headache.

“I’ll let them know that you’re in charge,” he finally says. “They’re as much of a soldier as you are, Hinata. Don’t underestimate Nekoma’s training.”

“I don’t underestimate it,” he answers, shrugging one shoulder. “I just need to make sure that they know what they’re dealing with. Atsumu can tell you how much it took for me to trust him.”

“Why do you hate Alphas so much?” Ukai snaps. He’s frowning at Shouyou, a grimace of apprehension twisting his features as he slides his hands into his pockets and takes a drag of his cigarette without taking it out of his mouth. He puffs out a cloud of nicotine-filled smoke and Shouyou sneezes. “What did they ever do to you?”

“Privilege,” he spits, smiling at Ukai. It’s overly-sweet and sarcastic, and he enjoys the shift in his expression— apprehension turns into genuine surprise and he can’t say he’s disappointed at his reaction. “Alphas are naturally more privileged than us Betas and Omegas. What’s a life of forced labour when us Omegas die of septicaemia if we decide to have a bond with them? Things might be different here at Nekoma, but I grew up surrounded by the fear of even _talking_ to them. Until they don’t recognize that lack of morality behind the manipulation of the voice, I will not stop hating them.”

“They’re not the ones at fault for that.”

“They might not be guilty of what evolution gave them and how society treats them,” he drawls on, slowly, almost carefully. “But they _are_ guilty of the way they use what evolution gave them, and they _are_ guilty of letting things go as far as they’ve gone for years.”

By the look Ukai gives him, Shouyou sees that he doesn’t understand his point. It’s okay, though; he gets why he doesn’t and he doesn’t blame Ukai for it. It’s hard to understand the deep-rooted hatred of someone if you’ve never been oppressed the way Omegas have been in the Hospital for years. As far as Shouyou knows, Ukai was _born_ in Nekoma, which means he’s always been as free as it gets in this world. He’s never had to obey a bunch of Alphas that took advantage of the situation to turn the lives of others into hell. He’s never had to bend his will and shape it into whatever someone more powerful than him wanted.

Alphas have no idea of the power they have. Granted, they’re as brainwashed as the rest, but their basic instinct of _dominance_ is still there, whether someone manipulated or not. Shouyou learned to ignore his instincts because of his own safety— Alphas learned to ignore theirs because of their own convenience, and there’s no one in this world that can make him think the opposite.

“You gotta be careful with that mind-set, Hinata,” Ukai warns, averting his eyes from Shouyou’s. “It’s easier to ignore the grey areas to avoid analysing what lies beneath.”

“It’s also easier to ignore that they have free will to justify what they haven’t done,” he answers, trying with all his might to swallow down the snarl that weighs on his tongue. He fails. “You’re not gonna change my mind, Ukai-san.”

Ukai seems disappointed. Shouyou wishes he cared.

Winter is coming to an end by the time Shouyou and Atsumu leave the safe zone and start walking toward the Hospital Number Five. If someone had told Shouyou that Atsumu would _technically_ accomplish his mission of dragging him back to that terrible place, he would probably have laughed; the Shouyou from a few months back would have rather killed him than going back. Even so, he would’ve never set course to that place _willingly_. Granted, freeing his family required him to go back home, but he still would’ve avoided it as much as possible.

Their first day is uneventful; they hunt, they walk, they start looking for a shelter to spend the night. They sleep. It almost feels like those months at Nekoma had never existed; it’s so similar to their previous routine that they fall into it easily, working together like the well-greased gears of an efficient machine. Shouyou doesn’t even need to ask Atsumu to do something because he’s already doing it or, more surprisingly, he’s already done it.

It’s easy. Nice, even. He missed the true freedom of the outer world despite how free he was within the warm walls of Nekoma; having a limited space to move, no matter how big it was, still felt oppressive. Shouyou was never a friend of walls and fences, and despite how much he’s grown up, that hasn’t changed.

He’s thankful for having a partner that hates cages as much as he does. Atsumu was starting to feel restless and fidgety as well, even though he seemed to get used to the change of environment before Shouyou and quicker than him. That or he’s an amazing liar.

“How long dja think the guys from Nekoma will take to find us?” Atsumu asks. His lips move against Shouyou’s temple, his breath tickling on his hairline as he hugs him a bit closer underneath the blanket. He already smells like the smoke of the campfire and damp soil and Shouyou realizes he’s missed that smell more than he wants to admit.

“A few days, I think,” Shouyou answers, shrugging. “They’re using the Jeep to take us to the Hospital.”

“Those fuckers,” Atsumu chuckles. Despite his amused tone, there’s an edge of jealousy sliding underneath his words; Shouyou is sure he’s thought about how different their lives would be if they hadn’t been unlucky enough to be born in the Hospital Number Five. “Can ya imagine havin’ _cars_ in these _trying_ times? Couldn’t be me.”

“I bet the big fishes have cars,” Shouyou answers. Atsumu’s jugular beats slowly and steadily underneath his lips. “They just don’t want us to know.”

Atsumu hums under his breath and silence surrounds them; Shouyou can hear the rain falling outside of the walls of the building they’re spending the night in, the crackling of the campfire as it consumes the wood. Atsumu’s steady heartbeat, his calm breathing whistling in and out of his nose as his chest goes up and down at its tune. It’s peaceful, more peaceful than it was at Nekoma. Shouyou hadn’t realized how much he missed the silence of the wild, the absence of other human beings.

He moves a bit closer, basking in Atsumu’s warmth. He’s like a walking heater, helping him stay warm now that they lack Nekoma’s duvets and electric heating. If he were to make a list of the things he misses about that specific place, comfort would be his top one.

Atsumu’s fingers entangle in Shouyou’s hair as he massages his scalp in circular motions that start to lull him to sleep. He yawns against his neck, prompting an endeared chuckle out of Atsumu’s lips, his eyes droopy and heavy as he does his best to look at him.

“What’s so funny?” he babbles.

“Ya yawn like a kitty,” Atsumu jests, still chuckling under his breath. Shouyou frowns but even he’s well aware that drowsiness ruined the effect of his expression. “C’mon, Shouyou. Sleep a little. We’ll need to be well-rested for tomorrow.”

“I’m not a kid,” Shouyou protests. “I _know_.”

“Stop behavin’ like one and sleep, ya big toddler.”

He wants to argue. He does not.

Shouyou wakes up with the itching of his healing mark and the sound of something fumbling outside of the locked door of the building they spent the night in. He disentangles softly from Atsumu’s arms, moving as slowly as possible so as to not wake him up, pushing the blanket off of him before standing up, putting on his boots, and walking towards his crossbow, leaning against the closest concrete wall.

Shouyou’s hands are firm as he grips it and presses the stock against his shoulder, taking aim at the door. He just needs to wait until he can identify the sounds coming from the other side of the door—

“Shouyou?” Atsumu asks. His eyes divert from the door towards him, his gaze fixing on his sleepy face as he rubs at his right eye with his knuckles. “What’s goin’ on?”

Shouyou takes his index finger to his mouth, pressing it against his lips to instruct him to stay silent. Atsumu’s eyes focus instantly, his sleepy expression disappearing from his face as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. He moves quickly and silently, pushing the blanket off of him and sliding out of the improvised bed to stand up and pat his thighs until his fingers wrap around the handle hilt of one of them.

Shouyou barely hears the sound the pocket clip detaching from the strap around his thigh, but he sees the deadly shine of the blade as Atsumu makes it spin in between his fingers; it almost looks like the dust tail of a comet as he waits patiently for Shouyou to give him the sign that’ll let him know that everything is okay—

Everything is _not okay_. They notice when someone kicks the door open, the dust swirling in the air, prickling at Shouyou’s sensitive nose as he hears the _crack_ of the thick branch they used to jam the door. He feels the need to sneeze and uses all his willpower to not do it, frowning as he waits for the clouds of dust, splinters, and spider-webs to settle down again.

The frame in front of him confuses him for a few seconds. Tall, broad shoulders, dark brown hair. Hazel eyes that scan the room under a frown, pale skin shining softly under the light of the embers.

_Atsumu?_

“What the _fuck_ ,” Atsumu spits.

It takes Shouyou a few terrible seconds to realize what’s happening; his drowsy brain refuses to catch up at the speed he needs it to, processing the data in front of him so slowly he wants to scream. It isn’t until those hazel eyes fix on him and the frown relaxes that the name he’s been looking for ever since the cloud of dust settled down pops up into his mind, prompting a hiss to go past his lips.

 _Osamu_.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Shouyou snarls, his fingers tensing around the crossbow. He takes aim at the point in between Osamu’s eyebrows, hating how this situation is awfully akin to the time he found Atsumu in that meadow. Osamu’s eyes fix on the tip of the bolt as he moves slowly, sliding his military knife back into the sheath attached to the straps around his shoulders.

“Well,” he begins, “hello there, Shouyou-kun.”

“Answer the damn question,” Shouyou spits. What’s with these twins? Just as Atsumu did when they met, Osamu uses his given name despite the fact that they don’t have any sort of relationship.

Shouyou wants to shoot, his finger tensed over the trigger. He can’t kill Osamu, however; he’s Atsumu’s twin. And it’s only logical to think that he got assigned Atsumu’s failed mission.

“Put that down, wouldja?” Osamu suggests, raising his hands with the palms turned towards Shouyou to show that he isn’t holding any weapons. He’s dripping wet, his hair stuck to his temples and forehead as he takes one step forward into the room.

“’Samu,” Atsumu intercedes. Shouyou notices that he’s closer now as he holds the knife, ready to throw it at his twin. “I’d recommend ya to answer Shouyou’s question.”

“Imma answer it as soon as he puts the goddamn crossbow down,” Osamu answers, flatly. “I know how good he’s with that thing.”

“Wanna try my aim?” Shouyou offers, an almost childish smile curling up the corners of his mouth. The gesture tastes overly-sweet over his tongue, as fake as it gets as he holds back the need of shooting.

“Shouyou,” Atsumu warns. His voice is soothing, almost careful, and Shouyou is about to snap at him. He doesn’t, however, because this is his _twin_ and he isn’t about to make him choose between his brother and his mate. “Please put down the crossbow.”

Shouyou looks at Atsumu, his eyes fixing on his pleading eyes and the tense expression twisting his features. He’s still holding his knife in his right hand, but he’s not ready to throw it anymore; he’s just slowly walking towards him, his free hand reaching out as if he’s waiting for Shouyou to hold it.

He grits his teeth. Atsumu isn’t using the voice— he would’ve decked him by now if he was. But it’s impossibly hard to refuse, especially when he can feel the fear that electrifies the bond between them. It tastes dull like paper on his tongue, dry and suffocating.

Shouyou puts down the crossbow, sliding his arm through the strap to let the weapon hang against his hip. He looks at Osamu, his hazel eyes going from Atsumu to him as if he’s analysing the situation; tension snaps down his spine as he realizes that he’s gathering data, that he probably already knows that they’re bonded for life.

“Don’t do anythin’ to him, Shouyou, _please_ ,” Atsumu begs, his hand finally wrapping around Shouyou’s right wrist.

He wants to refuse. Yet, he nods just so Atsumu can relax a bit. The fear crackling through the bond like electricity is starting to seep through him, vibrating in the marrow of his bones as if it belongs to him. It’s overwhelming to think that Atsumu fears him _this much_.

Osamu puts down his hands, taking a few long strides towards Shouyou. He tenses upon the sight, ready to jump with his bared teeth aimed at his neck. His fight or flight response is screaming at him to do _something_ , whatever, to avoid the danger that’s walking towards him.

Atsumu pulls, putting him out of Osamu’s trajectory as he stops in front of the embers of the campfire, reaching out with his hands so the residual heat warms up his almost frozen fingers. Shouyou can see his purple nails as he trembles slightly.

‘”Samu, what’re ya doin’ here?” Atsumu asks, sounding tired.

“I’ve got news about Shouyou-kun’s family.”

Shouyou snorts.

“Sure, _Alpha_. ‘Cause you know my family _so well_ ,” he hisses sarcastically. Atsumu startles in his spot, probably thrown off; Shouyou is pretty sure he’s not used to that tone of voice anymore. It’s been months since he heard it.

“I do, actually,” Osamu shoots back, shrugging. How can he look so carefree when Shouyou is _so_ ready to kill him? “’m not here ‘cause I want to, trust me.”

“Then?” Atsumu presses. His voice sounds wary, almost as if he’s waiting for Osamu to try and do something to them. “Ya here to drag Shouyou back?”

“What?” Osamu breathes out, incredulous. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Shouyou jeers, giving him a sarcastic smile. Atsumu tenses beside him, his eyes fixing momentarily on his face. By the looks of it, he doesn’t like what he sees in his expression. “Why else would you be out here if it isn’t to drag my ass back to the Hospital?”

“’m here to inform ya ‘bout yer sister.”

Shouyou’s throat constricts at the mention of Natsu, his heart skipping a beat as he notices the shiver of sheer panic that goes down his spine. Atsumu’s hand tightens a bit around his wrist like he’s waiting for Shouyou to miss his step and fall face-first onto the ground.

“Come again?” he manages to push out.

“The big fishes are tryin’ to repeat the story,” he reveals, turning around to look at Shouyou. His eyes feel ice-cold when they meet Shouyou’s like he’s not delivering a heart wrenching new but talking about the awful weather that scourges the world outside the walls that surround them. “They wanna use Natsu-chan as a scapegoat.”

His throat tightens a bit more as if there’s a hand tightened around his neck, trying to choke him to death. His breath whistles in his throat as he struggles to get oxygen.

“What?”

His voice is hoarse. It hurts to speak, but he pushes through the pain nonetheless. His fingers are twitching and his knees are trembling, just about to give out underneath the weight of his body.

“They’re gonna use Natsu-chan in the same way they wanted to use ya.”

That can’t be right. They can’t go as far as to hurt a ten-year-old child to keep their hold on the power— that’s ridiculous, even for their standards. Natsu hasn’t even started her specific training, why is she being tested? The tests are supposed to begin once they turned twelve years old, she wasn’t supposed to be in danger so soon. She wasn’t supposed to be in danger _at all_ ; Shouyou’s plan counted on that. He had at least three years to find the other safe zones and inform them about the Hospital Number Five’s situation so they could help him set his family free. How could they—?

Shouyou hisses and Atsumu startles slightly beside him. The hand tenderly wrapped around his right arm is tense against his exposed skin.

“You’re lying,” Shouyou snarls. It’s only when he misses his step and the sole of his boot slides against the damp concrete that he realizes he’s trying to get off of Atsumu’s grasp, struggling to be set free so he can break Osamu’s bones one by one. “That’s not true! Nacchan isn’t in danger—!”

How can he be so sure? It’s been a year since the last time he saw her and his mother, a year since he left the Hospital Number Five and his old life within those walls. How can he be so sure that Osamu’s not telling the truth?

“My mom would never allow the doctors to run tests on her. They need her signed permission to do so. I _know_ you’re lying.”

That’s true; they can’t touch Natsu until she turns twelve, and if they decide to break their own rules, they still need his mother’s signed permission to run the tests. Natsu is safe, his gut is telling him. His mother would never let them, she would never sign the papers to send her to the laboratory. Especially after her son was the safe zone’s designated scapegoat. He’s sure. It _cannot_ be true.

“Yer mother disappeared weeks ago. The commander said she’s dead.”

Something akin to a glass breaking vibrates in between his ears. It’s painful and it seems to drill in the mere marrow of his bones, into his eardrums, electrifying his nerve ends with the unpleasant feeling of stiffness that comes with a numb limb. It’s almost like he’s trapped inside a bubble, something that doesn’t allow him to experience the world as he should. Tense and lacking the oxygen he needs to survive.

His knees give out under his body and his kneecaps hit the concrete floor with a dull thump. It should be painful— yet, he feels nothing. Nothing but the pricking of that numb pain that overcharges his senses.

“Shouyou?”

Atsumu’s voice is soft, almost like he’s talking to a wounded animal. Is he the wounded animal? Why do his words sound so familiar? The syllables coming out of his mouth feel awfully familiar, the sound waves tickling at the corners of his memory.

_Ah, right. That’s my name._

“What are you doing here, _Alpha_?” Shouyou hisses. Even while being kneeled on the floor, trembling like a dry leaf on the wind, his voice is hard and piercing like a knife. Osamu notices it too; he takes one precautious step backward as if he wants to put as much distance as possible between his body and Shouyou’s. He might be smaller and objectively weaker, but there’s a furious rage boiling in the pit of his stomach and he doesn’t need weapons to beat someone to a pulp. It doesn’t matter if that someone is an Alpha. “Spit it out. Did they give you Atsumu-san’s mission? Is this your strategy to drag me back to my death?”

“Yer sister sent me,” he answers, his right hand slowly moving to one of the military knives on the straps around his shoulders. He’s getting ready to fight and Shouyou wants nothing but to see him try; even with the two knives, even with the size difference, Shouyou is sure he can knock him out before he can touch him. “She asked me to find ya.”

“And you were so kind that you decided to help a little girl you’ve never spoken to in your fucking life, right?”

“Natsu-chan used to keep me company when I was healin’ from my broken bones,” Osamu retorts with a pained expression. Good. Shouyou wants to keep hurting him. “She helped yer mom in the hospital.”

Shouyou notices a lump constricting his throat. His little sister is already helping out in the hospital? It’s almost nostalgic to think that he used to rock her in his arms until she’d fall asleep—

“And you expect me to trust your word?” Shouyou grumbles, a sibilant sound vibrating in the back of his throat, around the lump that doesn’t allow him to breathe properly. “Very fucking funny, Alpha. You haven’t given me _one_ single proof—”

Osamu’s hand moves to his pocket, and Shouyou stands up like his knees have springs attached to them, and he’s just about to launch forward when Atsumu’s arms wrap around his middle, keeping him in place. He snarls and growls, baring his teeth over his shoulder at him, feeling betrayed upon seeing him protecting his twin instead of siding with him— aren’t they a couple? Isn’t the bite mark in the back of Shouyou’s neck some sort of promise, an eternal bond?

“Atsumu-san, _let me go_ ,” Shouyou hisses. It hurts to speak to him like that, to attach the honorific to his name after months of calling him just ‘Atsumu’. It hurts to see that he still chooses blood over a bond they both decided to share. He tenses against Shouyou, noticing the honorific there where it shouldn’t be. “I’m gonna kill him.”

It’s not an empty threat and Atsumu knows it. He grimaces at the harshness of his voice, at the hoarseness of it. Shouyou’s throat feels raw and sore.

“Listen to him,” he pleads, tightening his hold around Shouyou’s waist. He kicks the air, too scared of hitting him but still struggling to get off of his hold. “Shouyou, _please_.”

“ _No!_ ” Shouyou shouts. His voice cracks and he notices all too late the tears that are running down his face. The taste of salt coats his tongue, extremely unwelcome in a situation where he should just be _furious_. He’s not an angry crier, he doesn’t _cry_. Not in front of a stranger that’s spitting lie after lie to manipulate him. “I’m gonna kill him and feed his flesh to the infected! Let me go!”

“If he were here to drag ya back, he would’ve killed me on the spot!” Atsumu screams, positively silencing Shouyou’s rambling. He didn’t even realize he was babbling nonsense, his brain too fogged with rage and sadness to try and give some real meaning to the words going out of his mouth. “He knows I wouldn’t let him touch ya. He knows I’d protect ya even if that means killin’ him.”

Shouyou stops fighting, his heart beating furiously against the inside of his ribcage when he realizes he doesn’t know if he can trust Atsumu. He hates going back to the first time they met, to the constant wariness that kept him on edge before Atsumu proved himself to be worthy of his trust. He hates that he can’t believe in what he’s saying, he hates that he can’t trust his gut like he’s been doing his whole life. It feels like walking in the dark through a path sown with broken glass.

His eyes snap towards Osamu, just to find a small piece of paper held almost reverentially in between his index finger and thumb. Even from that distance, Shouyou recognizes Natsu’s writing.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Atsumu lets him go. Shouyou stumbles forward now that he’s lost the only thing that kept him grounded; his gravity centre tilts over its axis, making him feel dizzy and lightheaded.

He snatches the paper off of Osamu’s hold and gives it a quick read. His eyes scan the letters written on the paper, his nose sniffs intently at the sheet between his fingers while he looks for some trace of Natsu’s scent.

He only finds Osamu’s.

“How do I know if this is real?” he spits, frowning at Osamu. The tears are still streaming down his face but judging by the cautious look on the Alpha’s face, he still looks crazy enough to chew his throat out.

“Ya’ll have to trust me.”

An incredulous scoff goes past his lips. Is he _for real_? He wants Shouyou to trust him? He’s not given him a single proof of being worthy of it.

“Sure, want me to pour you some tea while we’re at it?” Shouyou mocks, a sharp, dangerous edge sliding under his words.

“Do whatever ya want,” Osamu sighs, shrugging. “It won’t be my fault if Natsu-chan dies ‘cause yer head is way too far up yer ass.”

“Shouyou,” Atsumu begins, standing beside him. His fingers interlock with his, giving them a light, tender squeeze to both give him moral support and help him calm down. “We’re goin’ back to the Hospital anyway. It wouldn’t make any difference.”

Shouyou growls low in his throat.

“’Course it’d do,” he hisses, frowning up at Atsumu. “How do we know he’s not using my sister to bait me into a trap?”

“Why would I bait ya into a trap?” Osamu blurts out. “There’s no virus, why would I want to drag ya back for a cure that doesn’t exist?”

Osamu has a point, but Shouyou doesn’t want to recognize it. He knows about the truth hidden within the walls of the Hospital and therefore, he has no reason to bait Shouyou into a trap. He’s probably being honest, or he’s probably so brainwashed that he thinks the truth he’s saying is nothing but a lie. It would make sense if the big fishes decided to tell him the truth, disguising it as a lie to make Shouyou trust him. They _obviously_ know Shouyou is aware of the non-existence of the virus.

He sighs, a tired sound that seems to deflate his lungs.

“He’s coming with us,” Shouyou begins, looking at Osamu with contempt. “But I’m handcuffing him. I’m not letting him go around freely.”

“Ya do know handcuffs ain’t gonna work, right? I can break ‘em easily. Why waste yer time?” Osamu deadpans.

Shouyou scowls at him. He hates hearing Atsumu’s words in his mouth.

“Mental stability.”

Atsumu snickers under his breath as he walks towards Shouyou’s backpack, crouching beside it to rummage through its content until Shouyou hears the jingle of the chain. He straightens his back, the handcuffs hanging from the index finger of his right hand as he makes his way towards Osamu’s position.

“Yer not gonna put those on me, right?” he says, almost nervously.

“Ya bet yer ass Imma do it,” Atsumu answers. “Trust me, it’s better this way.”

“Excuse the life outta me if I can’t see it.”

“Shouyou isn’t jokin’ when he says he’ll kill ya,” Atsumu breathes out. He looks tired as if he hasn’t slept in weeks. “’Samu, don’t test him. It isn’t convenient for ya.”

“’m assumin’ ya wouldn’t help me if he tried to kill me,” Osamu snorts. He looks hurt.

Atsumu grimaces at his words as he gestures at his twin so he holds his hands out. Shouyou presses his lips into a thin, pale line; this is _exactly_ what he didn’t want. He didn’t want Atsumu to have to choose between his twin and his mate. It isn’t fair, it doesn’t matter how much Shouyou hates Alphas.

“Please don’t make me choose,” Atsumu pleads. “I can’t.”

Osamu doesn’t like it when Atsumu handcuffs him. He looks at his twin with an incredulous frown, almost as if the idea of Atsumu siding with Shouyou escapes his understanding. His hazel eyes fix on Shouyou, his lips pressed into a thin, pale line.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he comments. “What if ya need my help?”

“Look, Alpha,” Shouyou sighs, glaring at him with murderous intent. “I’m willing to give Atsumu and I more work protecting ourselves plus your handcuffed ass than letting you go around freely. I do _not_ trust you—”

“I couldn’t tell,” Osamu interrupts.

“And I probably never will,” Shouyou goes on, ignoring him olympically. “You don’t have months upon months to prove yourself worthy of my trust.”

Atsumu chuckles despite the tense atmosphere around them.

“Ya’ve no idea, ‘Samu,” he giggles. “It took me saving his life _twice_ for him to trust me.”

“So I gotta save his life. Gotcha.”

“Twice.”

The perspective of having Osamu following their every step makes Shouyou feel uncomfortable and constantly on edge. As they walk under the heavy rain that feels like ice needles hitting his skin, he goes over their conversation; Natsu being tested to see if she’s ‘immune’, his mother’s disappearance. He refuses to believe that they killed her; it wouldn’t be strange for the big fishes to go that far, especially after finding out they’re trying to use a _little girl_ as a scapegoat, but he still refuses to believe it. His mother _cannot_ be dead. He’s sure they have her somewhere in the Hospital.

It would be easier for the big fishes to manipulate the Hospital’s population if they turned Natsu into a martyr; her older brother, the only known cure, escaped like a coward. Her mother disappeared under ‘mysterious’ circumstances. It would only turn her sacrifice into something they can use to emotionally manipulate the soldiers into doing whatever they want.

“Wait a second,” he murmurs, stopping dead in his tracks. Atsumu bumps against him, complaining about how he should warn him before stopping abruptly as he turns around and fixes his eyes on Osamu. “Nacchan knows the truth?”

Osamu nods. He’s _drenched,_ and Shouyou would pity him if he weren’t in the same condition.

“Yer mom told her.”

It makes sense, then. If his mother knows the truth, it would only be _convenient_ to get her out of the picture. The idea that her knowledge could have gotten her killed pops up into his head and he pushes it into the darkest corner of his mind. He doesn’t need more reasons to believe that she’s actually dead.

Especially because _he_ was the one who told her the truth before leaving the Hospital Number Five.

“How long have you known?”

“I found out after yer mom disappeared,” Osamu answers.

Shouyou frowns. It’s… _too_ convenient, even for the big fishes.

“Did my mom disappear before or after they decided to use Nacchan as a scapegoat?” he asks, carefully.

“Before.”

 _That_ doesn’t make any sense; it opens the possibility of his mother’s disappearance not being linked to the big fishes’ plans for Natsu. If they really wanted to use his sister as bait to drag him back, they would’ve made it look more obvious: reveal their purpose for Natsu, making his mother disappear, sending Osamu to drop the bomb and fetch him and the traitor Alpha back.

Unless… unless they wanted to psychologically torture Shouyou. Which makes sense for them.

If they managed to guess what Shouyou was doing throughout that time he spent out of the safe zone, if they _know_ that Shouyou informed Nekoma about the Hospital’s situation, killing his mother would be payback. Petty and stupid —given the fact that his mother is one of the few doctors within the safe zone— but payback nonetheless.

This is gonna eat him alive. He can feel it.

Atsumu and Shouyou decide to stop walking when the rain starts to increase; it’s almost impossible to see more than two metres forward and the mud underneath their boots makes them miss their steps more times than they want to admit out loud. It would be _impossible_ to hunt like this, too: the water erases the trails left by the prey as soon as they’re made, erasing with them the scent that could guide them. The noise overwhelms their hearing sense, too, making it impossible to tell if something will come out of the bushes and attack them.

It’s also almost impossible to tell if it’s day or night. Rainy days like this are especially dangerous because there’s almost no ultraviolet radiation, which means the infected are free to roam the surface without having to hide in their underground holes.

Shouyou purses his lips. They should’ve waited for the rain to ease before they got out of their shelter for the night. There’re two options left; go back over their steps or advance until they find another building they can spend the day at. And by the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like the rain will stop soon.

“We should go back!” Shouyou shouts, trying to make himself heard over the thunderous noise of the rain. “We can’t keep moving with this weather!”

He turns around, staring at Atsumu and Osamu, standing side by side. Under the rain, with their hair dripping water like someone’s pouring bucket after bucket over their heads, it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. Shouyou, however, doesn’t need to look at the handcuffs around Osamu’s wrists to recognize Atsumu even through the fog lifted by the drops hitting the ground.

“Do we have any firewood left?” he asks. Atsumu runs his hand over his face as he nods. “Great. Let’s get going.”

He’s glad they’ve been stacking firewood in every shelter they’ve spent the night at. Granted, they still have to go looking for more the next day when they move to another location, but at least if an emergency —like a downpour— occurs, they have enough to keep themselves warm.

The way back to the shelter seems to be punished with a drop in the temperature around them; it keeps raining, the droplets hitting Shouyou’s body like bullets as he shivers. His breath becomes a cloud of steam in front of him, mixing with the fog lifted by the downpour. It’s gonna take _hours_ for their clothes to dry and the last thing Shouyou wants is to catch a cold because of the sudden weather change.

Osamu walks beside Atsumu in silence. Shouyou feels observed as he makes a beeline to avoid a surprisingly big puddle of mud and crushes grass, grimacing at the squishy sound of his soles against the flooded ground. He’s never seen so much mud in his life and he positively would not like to see it again. Osamu’s eyes are fixed on him as he places his hand on Atsumu’s shoulder to use him as leverage to not fall face-first onto the ground.

“Question,” he begins, frowning. Atsumu’s eyes snap towards him, an aura of warning hanging around him. It makes Shouyou chuckle. “Y’all are…?”

“Beautiful beyond human comprehension? Yes, we are.”

Atsumu’s voice is light-hearted and Shouyou isn’t surprised at such a sarcastic answer coming from him. He’s gotten used to it at this point; even so, it’s one of the things he loves the most about him.

“A couple, ya fuckin’ pig.”

“Oi. Respect your eldest,” he snaps back, frowning. It looks almost funny when there are rivulets of water streaming down his face like his hair is crying. “And yah, we’re a couple.”

“Is he marked?”

“ _He_ is right here, you know?” Shouyou blurts out, fixing his stare on Osamu’s face. “Why do you care? It’s none of your business.”

Osamu smiles at him, a fox-like grin that makes a shiver go down Shouyou’s back. It’s like a _déjà vu_.

“I really wanna know if my twin got into some shit while he was gone,” he answers, nonchalantly. Atsumu chokes on his own spit, giving his twin a terrible scowl; he tries to hide it from Shouyou, but he fails miserably.

Neither of them answers the question. They just keep moving forward, walking against the wind and the direction of the rain, cursing under their breaths as they approach the concrete building —something that looks like a demolished store— that served as shelter last night.

They’re dripping wet when they cross the threshold. Shouyou feels sticky and gross as he squeezes the tips of his hair to get rid of the excess water, frowning at the puddle in front of his mud-stained boots.

“I hate rain,” he complains, unzipping his jacket with trembling fingers. He can barely feel them as the wet jacket opens, still clinging to his skin like a leech. The sound of the material sliding off of his arm makes him grimace and he squeezes it too to get the excess of water out of the cloth. “Tell me again why we decided to walk when the sky is falling out there?”

Atsumu shakes his head, droplets of water spraying around him like he’s a dog. He runs his hands through his hair, getting his fringe out of his eyes before unzipping his jacket too, taking it off with a grossed-out expression.

“’Cause ‘Samu woke us up and ya don’t function if ya don’t sleep.”

Osamu, still dripping wet, snickers from the furthest corner. He’s trembling slightly and Shouyou frowns; he should be used to the cold weather outside of the Hospital. It took Atsumu and him six months plus a few days to reach Nekoma and in those months, they adapted to the temperatures quite well.

That idea raises some suspicions inside of Shouyou; why isn’t he used to the weather? How did he find them? How did he get there? How long did it take him?

“Say, Alpha,” Shouyou begins, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. Osamu hums to acknowledge his words, prompting him to continue with arched eyebrows and a curious glimmer in his hazel eyes. “How long did it take you to reach us?”

“A few months,” he answers. He looks confused.

“Then how come you aren’t used to the cold yet?”

Shouyou feels Atsumu’s tension through the bond. His fear tastes like paper as if it’s isolating his taste buds from everything else; his tension, on the other hand, tastes like copper, awfully akin to blood.

“Geez, man, I don’t know, maybe some of us don’t have a high cold tolerance like ya have,” Osamu snorts. His answer seems natural and Shouyou wants to trust him, but his instinct is stronger than he is. The only thing that makes him feel a bit at ease is knowing Kenma and Sakusa are on their way to pick them up. More eyes to keep on Osamu will make him relax a little. “Ya don’t need to suspect everything ‘bout me, y’know?”

Atsumu scoffs. Two pairs of eyes turn to him as he chuckles under his breath.

“Ya should get used to it,” he warns, smiling at Osamu. Shouyou shivers; it’s the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Osamu notices too. “When one is a fugitive, even the trees have eyes.”

Shouyou swallows. It doesn’t surprise him to know that Atsumu doesn’t fully trust his twin either; he doesn’t know how deep-rooted the brainwash is and he won’t be sure about it until things get complicated. People tend to show their true colours only in the face of danger, and they’ve already been through too much danger to crave a new encounter with it.

He feels guilty. The fact that Atsumu is dancing on the edge of what he feels for his brother and the wariness he’s learned from Shouyou feels like it’s on him; he pointed his knife at his twin and admitted Osamu would’ve needed to kill him to get to Shouyou. He’s willing to put himself between the two people he loves the most and he doesn’t know how to live with that knowledge.

Is it okay? Is it _correct_? Should he be doing this? Should he _allow_ this to happen? It doesn’t really matter if Osamu is here to betray them both, if his mission is the one Atsumu didn’t manage to accomplish. He’s still his twin— Shouyou cannot ask him to choose between the two. It’s not fair for either of them.

There’s not much to do after they’re done ‘repairing’ the door. They do the best they can with the things they have and despite Shouyou’s scowl of dissatisfaction twisting his features, he’s well aware of the limited resources they have in hand. He still feels annoyed at the situation; if _someone_ hadn’t decided to kick the door down, they wouldn’t be in this problem.

Just as he predicted, their clothes take hours to dry; even though they hung them from some branches in some improvised line, they’re still slightly damp when Shouyou picks them up and evaluates their state.

Atsumu and Osamu are whispering to each other, sitting comfortably on the ground. Osamu’s back is pressed against the concrete wall, his stare straying every now and then towards Shouyou’s position. He feels uncomfortable; observed, _analysed_. What’s he thinking? What’re his intentions?

The bond, however, feels relaxed. Happy, even. Atsumu’s emotions are peaceful, somehow easing the never-ending stress that makes his nerves feel like needles inside of his muscles. He’s glad that he’s this relaxed, this _happy_ , but he can’t help the doubt that bounces off of the inside of his skull. It seems to wait crouched in one of the corners of his mind, expecting the perfect moment to sneer at him, to rub an _I told you so_ on his face.

It’s almost like going back in time to those first months of being out here with Atsumu. Everything about the twins seems sketchy and yes, Atsumu did prove himself in Shouyou’s eyes. The amount of opportunities he had to accomplish his mission were too much to try and count them, but he didn’t betray Shouyou despite the fact that there was nothing to betray.

Shouyou can only expect Osamu to behave in the same way.

It takes Nekoma’s team three days to find them out in the open. It’s unusually warm for a February day, the first traces of spring starting to melt the accumulated snow and the golden sunlight starting to dry the soil underneath their feet.

Shouyou hears the Nekoma team before he sees it; he can feel the vibration caused by the tyres under the sole of his boots, the smell of burnt rubber, and the unpleasant smell of the exhaust pipe of the vehicle. He can hear the purring of the engine and the screeching of the tyres as the jeep comes a bit closer with every passing second.

It takes him two seconds to recognize Kenma’s bored expression. At first, when Shouyou hears the engine, he thinks the Hospital has found them. It could be possible after all; they could’ve put a tracker on Osamu and followed him there—

The fear that blooms in his chest withers when the jeep stops a few metres away from him, Kenma’s brown hair tied in a low ponytail as he hops off of the vehicle and starts walking towards him. There’s a dust stain on the tip of his nose.

His cat-like eyes go from Shouyou to Atsumu, and finally, with a small frown knitting in the middle of his eyebrows, to Osamu. He looks confused for a few seconds and Shouyou can almost see the gears inside of his head turning round and round, trying to understand the situation without asking about it.

A look of understanding shines in those yellow irises before he turns back to Shouyou, sliding his hands into his pockets as he leans in a bit, almost demanding his attention.

“Hello, Shouyou,” he greets. There’s a tiny smile curling up the corners of his mouth and Shouyou is sure this is the first one he’s seen since he met him. “Who’s the clone over there?”

“Miya Osamu,” Shouyou answers. He knows Kenma isn’t asking about his relationship with them since they’re identical twins, so he goes to answer the most logical question. “Or, as I like to call him, an annoying Alpha.”

“Every Alpha is annoying according to you,” Kenma answers.

“That they are.”

There isn’t enough time for introductions, so they don’t waste what they don’t have. Atsumu, Osamu, and Shouyou hop on the jeep as Kenma slides back into the driver seat, starting the engine. The vibration under Shouyou’s boots rips a surprised gasp out of his lips; it’s the first time he rides in a vehicle and the idea of _moving_ without using his feet is almost confusing. It’s also extremely entertaining.

The car starts to move right when a tall, beefy guy with owl-like eyes moves his hand in front of Shouyou’s face. He’s sitting on one of the backseats of the jeep, stretching his body as far as it can go to catch Shouyou’s attention from the further back of the car. He blinks at him, staring at the spiky, silver hair before he looks at his entire face.

“Hey!” he greets. Shouyou catches a trace of his scent and his nose scrunches by sheer instinct. _Alpha_. “I’m Bokuto Koutarou!”

Shouyou’s mind goes over every piece of data written by Ukai in a few milliseconds. Bokuto, an Alpha, extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat and an excellent sniper. Shouyou’s eyes fall to the strap on his shoulder, the shape of a sniper rifle poking its head from behind his back.

“You’re Hinata, right?” Bokuto continues. Shouyou looks at him, unresponsive, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “I’ve heard a lot about you! How’d you manage to survive _that long_ out of the Hospital?”

Shouyou purses his lips. He’s _loud_.

“Spite,” it’s all he says.

The other guy, Ushijima, doesn’t speak unless spoken to and Shouyou is thankful for the contrast. Bokuto doesn’t seem to shut up, _ever_ , and he’s not used to people running their mouths all the time. Granted, Nekoma was noisier than he was used to, but Shouyou never crossed paths with Bokuto. He’s also thankful for that.

Overall, he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. Shouyou is sure that once he gets over his never-ending rambling, they could be friends. _Even_ though he’s an Alpha.

According to Kenma’s —the team’s brain, according to Ukai, and a really dangerous expert in explosives— calculations, they’ll be back at the Hospital Number Five after ten. Ten days versus the literal months it took Shouyou and Atsumu to reach the other safe zone. Kenma says that he’s taking into account the part where they have to gather food and water; he based his calculations on what Shouyou told him about how long it took both of them to hunt and fill the water bottles. When asked about their sleeping schedule, Kenma just answers that they’ll have to take turns; while one drives, the others sleep.

“Wait,” Shouyou splutters, blinking in confusion. “You want the Alpha to drive, too?”

Kenma looks at Shouyou from over his shoulder, arching his thin eyebrows with something akin to disbelief as if Shouyou just asked a stupid question.

“I don’t think you want him slacking around just because you wanna put a bullet in between his eyes, do you?” Kenma asks. It sounds condescending, but Shouyou tries to ignore it.

Upon the mention of the gun resting against his back, he tenses slightly. It’s impossible for him to forget that he’s carrying that piece of metal and gunpowder, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try his best to ignore the deadly cold seeping into his skin.

“You do realize none of us knows how to drive, right?”

“You guys don’t—?” he begins, dumbfounded by the revelation. “Jesus Christ, what did you all learn back at that hell?”

“Wait,” Osamu breathes out, frowning at his twin first and then at Shouyou. He seems to have caught the exchange a bit late as if his brain isn’t functioning at full capacity. “Bullet?”

Sakusa, sitting on the passenger seat, turns around and places his arm against the top of the backrest. He gives Osamu a frown and a look that seems to ask if he’s stupid.

“You don’t think we’re gonna raid the Hospital with crossbows and knives, do you?”

Osamu blinks in confusion. He seems at a loss of words and Shouyou snickers under his breath like the petty little shit he is.

“I can’t believe this. Miya, is stupidity a genetic trait in your family?”

“OmiOmi, don’t you think you’re being _a bit_ rude?” Bokuto asks. He’s almost pouting at Sakusa’s lack of manners, but Shouyou just wants to encourage him to insult Osamu further.

Despite wanting to listen to Sakusa’s answer, Shouyou pushes their conversation out of his attention field. He focuses on the road and not losing his teeth whenever the tyres find a bump in the irregular ground. If there was concrete covering the soil, there’s not a single trace of it; time seems to have devoured streets and almost every vestige of humanity. A few things remain, like those demolished buildings they spend the night at and fire hydrants whose colour has been washed up by the rain, the wind, and the sunlight.

The sun hides quickly on the horizon, pinks, purples, and reds announcing the unstoppable coming of the night reaching its fingers across the sky. Shouyou isn’t so sure about Kenma’s idea of keep driving during the night; the sound of the engine and the front lights can attract the infected roaming close and despite being able to see just fine with the lack of light in the back of the jeep, he can’t tell his aim will be the same from a moving vehicle than it is when he’s standing still.

When the first rays of the moonlight start to shine, Bokuto takes off the bag with the rifle off of his back. He gestures at Shouyou to trade places with him at the same time Ushijima does the same with Atsumu, signalling him to move quickly. They end up sitting on the backseats, occupying their places.

“Kenma?” Shouyou calls.

“Don’t worry, Shouyou,” Kenma says without ever taking his eyes off of the road. “These two are the best snipers at Nekoma.”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Oikawa interjects. Shouyou had barely noticed him, especially because he was fast asleep on Ushijima’s shoulder. His hair is tousled and his eyes seem puffy as he stretches on his seat in between Shouyou and Atsumu; he seems to have woken up upon the mention of someone being a better sniper than him. “Come again?”

“Go back to sleep, Oikawa,” Kenma deadpans. His hands are steady and tight around the steering wheel. “We’ll let you know when we need you.”

“I refuse to sleep beside _him_ ,” Oikawa complains, pointing at Atsumu with his thumb. He doesn’t mention the elbow incident and Atsumu snickers under his breath, a fox-like grin pulling at the corners of his lips. “It also looks like Shrimpy over here will chew my throat out at the first chance.”

The loud _bang_ of one of the rifles startles Shouyou. He jumps on his seat, turning around so fast he’s sure he’ll get a stiff neck, squinting at the darkness until he’s able to distinguish more than blurry shapes into the night. Bokuto is recharging the rifle, lying on his stomach with the gun leaning against the back of the jeep.

Another shot and Shouyou hears the infected’s stiff body hitting the ground. Bullet after bullet, throughout the whole night, Bokuto and Ushijima leave a trace of bodies behind the car. Shouyou tries to keep the body count but he’s unable to; they’re coming in waves and the Alphas are taking them out so easily it’s almost ridiculous. At some point, Shouyou wants to join in, but he’s perfectly aware that he would lose his bolts if he decides to shoot. He can’t ask Kenma to stop the car every time he kills an infected so he can retrieve the bolt he used to bring it down.

They only stop to eat and get water from the river. Since the jeep allows a piece of heavier luggage, it isn’t necessary for Shouyou and Atsumu to gather firewood; between the things they’re carrying in the car, there’s a small kitchenette they use to cook their food.

Shouyou doesn’t like it that much. He misses the taste of smoke in his food.

The routine repeats itself every day; one of them drives while the others sleep, Bokuto, Ushijima, Sakusa and Oikawa take turns to occupy the back of the jeep to shoot at the incoming infected. Shouyou stares, dazzled at how easy it looks.

At some point during the second day of the trip, Atsumu and Shouyou decide to take off the handcuffs from Osamu’s wrists. He seems deeply thankful for it, massaging at his reddened skin with careful fingers.

Shouyou and Atsumu take turns to keep an eye on him. While the others sleep or take down the infected, one of them stays awake. Osamu doesn’t try anything and stays in the car when the rest go hunting their food. Sakusa seems willing to take care of him every single time they hop off of the jeep and Shouyou hears Kenma say that he doesn’t like the idea of walking into the forests. Too many germs.

Shouyou understands. Forests aren’t the cleanest places on earth.

He discovers that Kenma’s calculations about the time it’d take them to reach the Hospital were only about the _driving_ part. It’s dangerous to get close to the barbed wires by car, and he thinks it’s better to make the last bit of their trip by foot; it’s safer this way because they won’t be announced by the sound of the engine and they can knock out any guard that’s wandering out of the safe zone.

Shouyou is glad. That means the kitchenette is staying behind them along with the jeep and the rest of things they can’t carry while walking. Walking feels safer despite the infected and the wild animals, especially when he thinks about the possibility of a car crash.

The group moves in sync as they hop off of the vehicle and every single one of them slings their backpacks to slide their arms through the straps. The familiar weight of his luggage against his back makes him feel at ease, the bouncing of the crossbow against his hip as he walks feeling like the hug of an old friend.

And so they walk with Shouyou, Atsumu, and Osamu leading the way. There’s no one that knows the surroundings of the Hospital Number Five better than them; they were the ones who had to flee that place after all. Shouyou feels a shiver go down his spine when his eyes catch a glimpse of the barbed wires drawn against the pale sunlight, looking as deadly as they did when he left the place he used to call home. Climbing is out of the picture since the wires aren’t the only defence mechanism; the fence that surrounds the Hospital’s grounds are electrified and not even the birds go near that thing. Touching the fence is a fast trip to certain death.

Shouyou warns the rest about the fence and they nod at the same time. It’s almost spooky how they all move in sync despite the fact that most of them met each other just a few days ago.

When the shape of the building comes into view, Shouyou stops dead in his tracks. The tall, white Hospital with a rickety sign that centuries ago used to have something written but now is only a reminder of what the world used to be. The boarded-up windows glimmering softly under the sunlight, the arid grounds in front of the building looking as if it hasn’t rained in years.

The sight sends a shiver of fear down his spine, his hands trembling as his fingers grip the crossbow resting against his hip. The weight doesn’t ease the oppression he feels in his chest, growing with every beat of his hammering heart like a poisonous bubble replacing his lungs. It’s getting hard to breathe.

“Shouyou?” Atsumu calls. His fingers are warm against the exposed skin of his arm, a frantic look searching for Shouyou’s eyes as he invades his personal space. “Shouyou, snap outta it.”

“What?” he breathes out, a trembling sound that seems child-like to his own ears. He grimaces at his voice; he’s not a scared kid, he should _not_ sound like one.

“Shouyou, ya need to keep it together,” Atsumu whispers. Shouyou is sure he can feel his fears through the bond and he scolds himself. Now that their feelings are shared, he can’t allow himself to be scared. It could be dangerous for Atsumu. “I know this place brings bad memories, but—”

The clicking of a gun drags Shouyou’s attention away from Atsumu’s face; his eyes look frantically for the source of the sound, and his blood runs cold when he sees Kenma pointing his gun at someone in front of him.

Someone dressed in military attire, pointing a crossbow at them.

Kenma shoots, the sound piercing Shouyou’s ears as Kenma holds his ground against the recoil. His eyes follow the limp body hitting the ground, blood flowing from the hole in between their eyebrows. He doesn’t recognize the dead person lying a few metres away from him, but he recognizes them as a woman, her short black hair caking with blood. She looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

“We need to move,” Sakusa urges as he pulls from the edge of the facemask. It hangs from one of his ears and Shouyou has the first complete sight of his face. He doesn’t register it. “That shot must’ve alerted the rest of the guards—”

He doesn’t manage to finish his sentence before the whistling of something cuts him off. Shouyou’s back tenses when he notices the dart attached to Sakusa’s right arm.

_They knew… how did they…?_

From behind the fence, a line of eight men hold up guns pointed at them. Shouyou doesn’t recognize the type, but he doesn’t really need to; the _things_ coming out of them are recognizable enough for him to snarl at them, lifting the crossbow at the same time a dart pierces the skin of his left thigh.

He doesn’t manage to see if Atsumu has been hit too before everything turns black.

The first thing he notices when he wakes up is the cold metal of an operation table against his naked back. The second thing is the fact that his wrists and ankles are tied to the table through hard leather straps that dig into his skin when he pulls from them by sheer instinct, swallowing the scream that’s building up in the back of his throat, barely fed by how superficial his breathing feels. He’s hyperventilating and the smell of sterilization is filling his nose, his lungs, his entire being as he keeps pulling, hurting his heels as his feet hit furiously against the metal under his body.

His eyes prickle with non-spilt tears as he pulls over and over again, drawing blood from both his wrists and ankles. It hurts but the adrenaline simmering through his bloodstream anaesthetizes the wound that seems to go deeper and deeper with each pull.

He bites his lip until he tastes the blood coating his tongue, but he doesn’t stop at the coppery, salty flavour. It should be a warning for him to stop what he’s doing immediately, but there isn’t a single trace of logic left in his brain. The thought of how he needs to get out of there, how he needs to get out of this operation table go round and round in his head, bouncing off of the interior of his skull, repeating themselves until they lose all their meaning and become a remote cacophony of things he knows he should understand.

The hard light from the fluorescents hurts his retinas when he looks up, combing the room with a frantic stare. The room around him is white and it’s empty except for the table, him, and another metallic table sown with instruments he’s seen only once in his life and wished he would never see again. The surgical steel shines deadly under the pale light like murderous stars floating a few centimetres above the ground.

The sight of them sends bile to press at the back of his tongue and he chokes on the bitter flavour mixing with the blood on his tongue. It feels like his worst nightmares have come to life just to torment him into madness and he isn’t really proud of seeing how they’re succeeding.

There’s a broad window covering almost the entire wall in front of the operation table; he sees machinery with thousands of blinking lights, red, green, yellow, all of them winking at him from the other side of the almost too transparent glass. There’re _human_ shapes behind the glass, too, and he only notices when one of the shapes walks in front of one of the lights.

He stops moving, inhaling deeply through his nose. He needs to calm down, he needs to _breathe_ to be able to think properly. He understands how fear is natural and he shouldn’t suppress it, that fear keeps him alert and ready for everything, but he sincerely doubts he needs fear to keep him alert in this situation. All his senses are sharpened to the maximum, Shouyou doesn’t need more sensory overload.

He wants to puke. His stomach feels like it’s upside down as he tries to control the urge of _pulling_ at the straps, stopping himself when he hears the soft tapping of his blood dripping onto the ground. If he keeps this up, he could pierce a vein and die from blood loss.

The crackling of _something_ makes his ears perk up, his eyes looking frantically for the source of the sound. He finds it when his stare fixes on something like a cube protruding from up the window. There’s a circle in the middle and he squints until he’s able to identify the rack.

 _A speaker_.

“Hinata Shouyou,” calls a masculine voice. Shouyou’s gaze drops from the speaker and back to the window, analysing the shapes he’s able to see from his position. There’s one leaning forward, probably speaking into a microphone. “Welcome home.”

He recognizes that voice. He’s been hearing it since he was just a kid, barking orders at everyone and then at him for years. Forcing him into submission through the voice, humiliating him for his Omega status. Threatening to throw him into a cell if he didn’t obey.

A snarl leaves his mouth. It’s involuntary and it seems to rip his throat apart as it goes past his lips. He would gladly chew this man’s throat out of his neck.

“I see you made it back safely,” he continues. He probably can’t hear Shouyou’s growling and cursing. “Someone congratulate Osamu… he managed to bring back the runaway Omega and the traitor Alpha.”

Upon the mention of Osamu, Shouyou’s resolution of not pulling at the straps crumbles into nothingness. He _knew_ if, he fucking knew it and he allowed the goddamn traitor to guide them straight into a trap— he swallowed his bullshit, he thought about _trusting_ him for Atsumu’s sake. He let his feelings get in the way of what he knew he should have done, but it’s too late to cry over spilt milk. He’s gonna die here. Not now, probably, but soon. He can feel it in the marrow of his bones. As he pulls worthlessly at the straps and hears the drops of blood hitting the ground, he feels death’s putrid breathing on the back of his neck.

The speaker crackles again.

“Send the doctors in,” the commander says. Shouyou is perfectly aware of how it isn’t necessary to speak his orders into the microphone. The commander just wants to torture him a bit further. “Let’s see if we manage to turn this… _feisty_ Omega into something we can control.”

When he’s dragged out of the operation room by a pair of hands that throws him around like he’s a ragged doll, Shouyou is a mess. There’s blood dripping from the open cuts in his arms and bile sliding down the left corner of his mouth. At some point he puked, and puked again, and _again_ until his stomach was completely empty and the only thing left was bile. His throat feels raw every time he swallows saliva.

His legs aren’t working under him. His entire body seems to have disconnected from his brain and he wonders which of the chemicals the doctors injected him did that. He can’t recount the amount of times he felt the needle piercing his skin, but he’s pretty damn sure of one thing; none of those syringes had anaesthesia. A few of them might’ve had epinephrine to wake him up every time he passed out because of the pain.

He’s quite proud of not having screamed. He kicked and writhed, spit blood and saliva at the doctors’ faces, but he never screamed. And god knows he wanted to, especially when the first scalpel tore his skin open.

Shouyou knows his time at the operation room was pure torture; there wasn’t anything about a research there. They just wanted to punish him for fleeing the safe zone, for refusing to serve as the scapegoat they needed. He’s starting to doubt if Osamu told the truth about his sister and his mother, if they’re still pushing forward with the cure excuse.

The commander joins them out of the operation room. His uniform is impeccable as always, his black, small eyes fixed on Shouyou’s mauled frame. Despite the pain he feels, he still manages to look up to him with contempt and hatred; if his mouth answered at his brain’s orders, he would spit at his face.

“A bit calmer now, aren’t we, Hinata?” the man gloats. His hands are behind his back as his eyes stare right back at Shouyou, and the burning desire of launching himself onto him to kill him burns his insides. “Let’s get you dressed and ready for your speech, shall we?”

_Speech?_

Shouyou can barely breathe… how does the commander expect him to be able to speak? He can’t stand up on his own, he can’t move.

The commander’s right hand appears into his visual field, his fingers holding a syringe filled with a clear liquid that he recognizes immediately. So _that’s_ how he’s gonna make it stand up and speak, huh? Epinephrine?

He’s not even sure he can get another dose of that thing. His heart is pounding like crazy against the inside of his ribcage; he recognizes the symptoms of tachycardia.

He proves his suspicions to be correct once they’re done dressing him up. It feels weird to get new clothes in a situation where his arms are bleeding and there’s still vomit staining the corners of his mouth. When the commander approaches with the syringe held out, ready to pierce the skin of his arm, he writhes and kicks with whatever is left of his strength. Hands seem to come out of the blue to restrain him, holding him down on the hard bed under his body.

“This little thing right here, do you see it?” the commander asks. His voice is severely damaged by tobacco smoke. “I bet you already know what it is, am I right?”

Shouyou doesn’t answer. One, because he’s unable to, and two, because if he moves his mouth, he’ll spit at his face.

“This is a little concoction the doctors made for my personal usage. It’ll keep you calm and compliant,” he explains as he presses the plunger. A short squirt of the liquid comes out of the tip, falling onto Shouyou’s arm. “It will also ease the pain for a while… and help you stand up. Nice, isn’t it?”

 _I’m gonna enjoy killing you_.

He barely feels the needle piercing the skin on the inside of his elbow, but he’s able to feel every drop of liquid being injected into his bloodstream. It seems to _burn_ as it makes its way into his system, spreading and tingling at every single one of his nerve ends as it starts to kick in.

His heart picks up the pace. Shouyou is close to a cardiac arrest— he can feel his left arm starting to go numb.

Despite having used the word ‘speech’, Shouyou isn’t supposed to talk to the crowd gathering in front of the podium. He finds out about it when one of the guards handcuffs him and puts a gag into his mouth, covered with a muzzle like he’s a rabid animal. He gives the guard a deadly stare and rejoices in the fear glimmering in their eyes.

He’s pushed around until he’s just out of the crowd’s view. Shouyou follows the commander’s path with an attentive stare as he walks towards the podium, saluting the people gathered in front of him before tapping the microphone.

The speakers crackle a little and Shouyou grimaces around the gag. Sensitive overload isn’t new to him, but in this situation, it feels almost as terrible as the torture session he just went through.

A tense silence covers the crowd, almost loud as Shouyou pulls at the handcuffs. He’s never been more jealous of Alphas as he is now; if he had their strength, he could break the chain just like Atsumu threatened—

_Atsumu._

If the chemical injected into his body was supposed to keep him calm, he realizes it isn’t working. He can’t feel Atsumu on the other end of the bond and he isn’t sure if it’s because the injection numbed it or because he’s—

He refuses to think about that possibility. It cannot be. It cannot happen. However, his brain seems to be obsessed with it, as it seems to be with every single thing that hurts him. He snarls against the gag, making the guard beside him startle. Their hand goes straight to grab the cattle prod hanging from their belt.

_C’mon, use it. Let’s see how you like a foot pressed against your windpipe._

“My dearest inhabitants of the Hospital,” the commander says. Shouyou’s eyes snap towards him, looking for the speakers as he combs the room with an attentive gaze. He’s starting to feel more and more alert now, despite the erratic beating of his heart. The commander’s voice makes sirens blare into his head. “It’s my pleasure to announce we’ve recovered the fugitive Omega and the traitor Alpha, thus bringing peace back to our beloved home.”

It’s not the first time Shouyou hears one of the commander’s speeches, but it always surprises him how he manages to depict this hellish place as some sort of paradise, pretending he loves every person living within these walls. Calling it a home when the best word to describe it would be a prison.

He talks about the Hospital Number Five as if it’s a place of peace, but Shouyou knows better. For years, the so-called peace has been nothing but a façade, built up to hide the nasty secrets hidden underneath his speeches and his mask.

Shouyou bites into the gag. His teeth slide against the plastic and he bites into it again, his jaws complaining at the strain. He’s very well aware of how dangerous this is, but he needs to speak or at least _growl_ at whoever tries to touch him. If they want to treat him like a rabid animal, a rabid animal he shall become. He’s gonna give them exactly what they want to see.

“Now that Hinata Shouyou has returned,” the commander continues, gesturing at Shouyou to come closer. He refuses to obey and hisses against the gag, prompting a surprised glance of the head of the big fishes. The guard presses the cattle prod against his back and the electric shock sends a wave of pain through his system, his knees trembling under the weight of his body. _Oh, this fucker is in for some special treatment_. The guard pushes him to go into the crowd’s sight and he stumbles forward, fighting to keep his balance without his arms. The commander smiles at him, an overly-sweet smile Shouyou recognizes all too well, extending his arm to point at him like he’s some sort of hunting trophy. “We can move forward with our research for the cure. His sacrifice will give us all a brighter future, a passport to recover the surface from the hands of the infected.”

Shouyou bites into the plastic gag. The material crumbles in between his teeth and he spits through the rack of the muzzle, the pieces falling to his feet just as the crowd roars in excitement for the supposed cure.

There’s a piece of plastic piercing his tongue, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He’s been through too much pain today to care about something as small as that.

“Why don’t you tell them the truth?” he snarls. The commander turns towards him, his eyes twice their size due to the astonishment written in his features. His small, marble-like irises fix on the pieces of plastic gathered at Shouyou’s feet, and a grimace twists his face. Shouyou rejoices in the expression. “Why don’t you tell them there’s no virus anymore? Tell them! Tell them how we’re all immune!”

The crowd gasps at the same time, all of the individuals standing in front of the podium seemingly fused into one monster. Every single one of the inhabitants of the Hospital is there, Shouyou can feel it in his bones. And if his hunch is incorrect, they will soon spread the word to the ones that aren’t there.

Shouyou growls when he notices the hands of the guard gripping his arms, writhing under the touch until he’s free. His right leg kicks backwards, nailing the guard in the stomach; he enjoys deeply the _oof_ that leaves their lips when his foot manages to push the air out of their lungs.

“Tell them all!” he continues, turning on his heels to press the sole of his boot against the guard’s neck. He presses until the colour of their face changes rapidly from white to red and then purple, grinning like a madman as he notices the scratches the guard leaves on his leg in their futile attempt for him to move his foot. “Tell them there’s another safe zone called Nekoma a few kilometres from here! Tell them you’ve got five of their men prisoners in the underground cells! Tell them Atsumu got bitten and he’s perfectly healthy!”

There are incredulous whispers spreading through the crowd, like a multi-headed snake sliding in between every individual. He’s not facing them, but he feels the gasps, the slurred words as they exchange dumbfounded words. The guard passes out under the sole of his boot.

“Go on,” he continues, reluctantly moving his foot away from the guard’s neck. He turns towards the commander, smiling at him like he’s claiming his last breath for himself. “Why don’t you tell them that you tortured me not even half an hour ago? I bet they would like to know what you had the doctors doing.”

The commander blinks at him for a few heartbeats, perplex, before snarling. Shouyou smiles wickedly at him when his voice is amplified by the speakers, the sound vibrating against the concrete walls. If he had known before how easy it is to rile him up, he would’ve tried it sooner.

“You dare to stand there and spit lie after lie?” he barks. Shouyou’s smile widens a little when he notices the veins on his temples about to burst. “The only thing I’ve ever done—!”

A shot interrupts him. Shouyou’s smile vanishes as the fear of someone else having killed the commander starts to settle beside his heart, squeezing it with cold fingers. The sheer panic in those small, black eyes is almost palpable and despite the petty pleasure that overcharges his senses, he’s still waiting for his limp body to hit the ground.

When it doesn’t, Shouyou launches himself forward.

He doesn’t care about the shot, doesn’t care about the crowd screaming orders at each other. He barely hears the _protect the children_ someone barks as his body collides with the commander’s, taking him down as they both fall to the ground. Shouyou barely pays attention to the unpleasant dull sound when his bones hit the wooden stage; he can only pay attention to one thing and that _one_ thing is the feeling of being sat on the commander’s stomach, his hands around his throat.

Shouyou doesn’t need to get the handcuffs off to choke him to death. He proves himself that much when his nails dig into the sweaty skin under his fingertips, blood flowing from the ten crescent marks as he _squeezes_ with all his strength.

He feels his Adam’s apple trying to bob underneath the palms of his hands. The commander takes his hands and his fingers wrap around Shouyou’s wrist, pulling to get his hands away from his neck. The sheer repulsion he feels upon being touched by someone as disgusting as the man under him prompts him to tighten his hold, to find almost physical pleasure on the wheeze that goes past his lips.

On the periphery of his hearing field, Shouyou hears more shots. More screaming, the steps of thousands of people moving in sync. More orders. More shots. Everything increases in quantity and he can’t pay attention to the noise, to the voices and the steps, too focused on the —quite literal— task at hand. Squeeze, _squeeze_ until the light in his eyes is out.

The commander’s face turns purple and Shouyou enjoys the sight of the veins in his eyes popping because of the strain of trying to get Shouyou off of him. He scratches at the skin of his hands, letting bloody traces behind, kicking the wooden floor as he tries to get free.

It’s worthless. Even if someone shoots him right now, Shouyou is not letting him go. He’s not dropping his hold on his neck until he’s not breathing anymore, until there’s nothing but a body to bury behind.

Shouyou’s fingers dig into the commander’s neck, almost finding the marks produced by his nails to sink his fingertips into his flesh. The blood is turning his neck into a slippery, sticky mess, but he keeps squeezing, keeps tightening, keeps smirking as the commander’s motions start to slow down little by little—

“Hinata,” someone calls. He barely recognizes the cigarette-damaged voice as he presses a bit harder, looking frantically for the popping of his Adam’s apple breaking under the pressure. “Hinata, he’s dead.”

Shouyou’s not sure. There’s still light in the glass-like eyes that are fixed on the ceiling above their heads. He squeezes a bit harder.

“Hinata!”

Someone grabs him from behind, pulling from his shoulders to get him off of the commander. His hands slide around his neck, letting him go, and he writhes and kicks without looking, smiling in delight when he hears the whine of pain of someone. He launches himself forward, his hands reaching out like claws to return to their rightful place, but more hands grab him, stopping him mid-way.

He doesn’t realize he’s screaming until a scoff interrupts him in the middle of something that’s mid-way into a snarl and a nonsensical sentence. His throat feels raw from screaming, from the tears that are streaming down his face as he trembles like a leaf in the wind, still kicking, still writhing as he tries to get those hands off of him.

“Sedate him,” someone orders, the same cigarette-damaged voice.

“If you put that fucking needle close to my arm,” he begins, voice hoarse and raspy. “I will snap your neck.”

Someone snaps their fingers in front of his face, attracting his attention. His eyes look frantically at the hand hovering before his eyes, going cross-eyed as he tries to focus. _The commander’s still alive_.

Amber eyes find a known face looking at him with something akin to disgust written in all of its features. He recognizes the face but can’t match it to any name as he pulls from one of his arms, trying to get free of the vice-like hold that keeps him in place.

“Hinata, the commander’s dead. You killed him. Stop fighting.”

Honey-like eyes, a lit cigarette hanging between thin lips.

“Ukai?” Shouyou pushes out, his motions slowing down as reality starts to sink into his brain. His surroundings feel suddenly too bright, too noisy, and the erratic beating of his hammering heart isn’t able to muffle the ambient noise. “What…?”

Ukai’s eyes snap from him to someone else and he signals. Shouyou hears the _tick_ of a needle piercing the thin skin on the inside of his elbow, and he’s surprised that there’s still healthy skin to do that at this point.

“What the fuck?” he croaks before passing out.

Shouyou wakes up with the feeling of leather straps around his wrists and ankles. There’s something pressing against his stomach, too, and he identifies it as another strap keeping him down.

He expects the sharp bite of the cold operation table against his naked back and is surprised when it never comes. What comes, however, is the soft, warm feeling of a mattress supporting his body weight as he pulls weakly from one of the straps, an even weaker scream building up in the back of his throat. It tastes like blood coating his taste buds, his tongue like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth as he parts his lips to push out a whimper.

_Not again, please, not this again. I’ll scream this time—_

He doesn’t have enough energy to pull at the straps as strongly as he would like, but he tries nonetheless. It’s a matter of pride at this point, to show them that no matter how many times they restrain him, doesn’t matter how many times they cut him open, he’s always going to fight against it. Over and over again until there’s not a single trace of flesh attached to his bones, until he breathes for the last time. Not here, not anywhere; they won’t defeat him easily.

A _beep_ breaks his focus on the strap around his left wrist. He frowns, his body moving in slow-motion as he tries to understand what’s happening.

The room around him is extremely _white_. The walls are closer than they were before he got dragged out of the operation room, but this could be another room, more secluded, to run weird ‘tests’ on him. It wouldn’t be strange for the commander to order something like that after his almost too-close for comfort attempt of killing him. He curses Ukai under his breath; if he hadn’t gotten in his way, he would’ve killed the fucker. He was _so close_ and for what? To get his chance snatched away by an unknown amount of hands?

Shouyou wants to scream again, this time because of the frustration that crawls its way up his spine. So close to getting his well-deserved revenge. So close of freeing everyone at the Hospital from the poisonous claws of the commander. He could almost taste him on the tip of his tongue, waiting for him to swallow it whole and make it _his_.

Another _beep_. Shouyou doesn’t recognize the sound until his eyes fix on something akin to a white box with a screen, a green shiny line going up and down at the pace of his heartbeat. There are numbers he doesn’t understand on the inferior corner of the thing.

His eyes follow the direction of the wire connected to the weird device until he finds its end attached to his chest. He’s covered up to the waist with a light-blue blanket and his upper-half is naked, but there aren’t any new wounds added to the world map of cuts, bruises, and burns staining his chest with red and purple.

There aren’t any new wounds on his arms either— overall, he seems to be in the same state he was when he passed out. His tongue hurts there where the piece of plastic from the gag pierced the tender skin and he feels like he hasn’t had a drop of water in ages, but beyond that, he’s… _fine_. Alive, at least. If he’s alive, he can get out of here.

The _beep_ picks up the pace. His heartbeat got quicker.

If he’s alive, he can find Atsumu and get him out of the Hospital. It was _such_ a stupid plan, such a stupid idea to go back to the place they got brainwashed and their lives were endangered too many times to count just because of their existence. It could have been anyone— it didn’t _have_ to be Shouyou. It could’ve been his sister, his mother, Atsumu. Anyone living within those concrete, damp walls.

Where are his mother and his sister? If anything of what Osamu told him was true, his mother is still missing and his sister is still in danger. He hasn’t got the time to lay here, connected to a lot of machines he can’t put a name to, but make him feel extremely annoyed with all the noise.

He needs to find his family and Atsumu and get them out of there. Them and the five men from Nekoma.

Shouyou hears shooting out of the room. His eyes snap towards the white, wooden door of the room, frantically moving from the handle to the straps around his wrists. If he could get off of these things…

The door opens. A doctor strides into the room, white coat and short, brown hair.

“Shouyou, you’re awake,” the doctor cries. Shouyou frowns. The voice feels familiar, tickling at the corners of his memory like a feather hovering over the sensitive skin of his chest. Amber eyes look at him as the doctor approaches and he recognizes the features of a woman. “Shouyou, sweetie, I need you to snap out of it.”

The doctor’s scent is familiar, too. He frowns a bit more. He can’t put a name to that face.

Who is this woman? She’s sitting on the edge of the bed with her body turned towards him, reaching out with soft, delicate hands that caress his cheeks. Her eyes are teary as she blinks in a futile attempt to get rid of them.

Why is she crying—?

“Mom?” he manages to push out. His voice is hoarse, almost a croak and he grimaces at the sound. Like nails on a chalkboard.

 _Mom_.

His mother looks perfectly fine, her white skin free of any wound or anything that could give away some difficulties. Her hair is as shiny as he remembers it, her clothes clean and ironed.

“Mom, someone told me you were—” he pulls at the strap. The wound in his wrist complains and his mother presses her hand against his arm to stop him from keep pulling. She’s crying now, the tears streaming down her face as she sobs silently. “Mom, answer me, are you okay? Is Nacchan okay?”

“What did they tell you?” she asks, a trembling sound that resonates deep in his bones. Her fingers are warm as they cup his left cheek and he pursues the caress, touch-starved and about to cry too. He’s been through a lot and he hasn’t seen her in over a year, and he’s missed her so, _so_ much he can’t even breathe properly.

“That fucking Alpha said you disappeared months ago,” he explains, speaking around the lump in his throat. There’s more shooting outside of the door, closer this time, but he can’t pay any attention to the sound as his mother’s thumb brushes against the highest angle of his cheeks. “He said—”

“Language,” she scolds, softly. “That’s what Osamu-kun told you? That I disappeared?”

“And that they were using Nacchan as a scapegoat,” he adds, closing his eyes at the memory. He still can’t believe he swallowed all of Osamu’s lies as if he was downing gulp after gulp of water. He should’ve trusted his instincts the first time they told him something was off with Atsumu’s twin. “Mom, you’ve no idea…”

“That, if you couldn’t guess, was a lie,” his mother sighs. “I’ve been working here the whole time… and Nacchan has been helping me, too.”

“So that’s the only true thing that fucker said,” he scoffs. His mother frowns at the language. “Is she okay?”

“She’s hidden somewhere safe until the worst passes,” she answers.

“The worse?”

“The Nekoma men didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” he asks, carefully. It almost sounds like a hiss when it goes past his lips, and a pang of deep-rooted pain divides his stomach in two when he notices the fear in his mother’s eyes. She fears _him_ , just like the rest of them do.

“There’s a lot of them out there, taking down the soldiers and looking for the big fishes. Now that the commander’s dead, they need to eliminate them from the picture if we don’t want to fall into the same pattern.”

Her voice is stern as she talks about people dying as if it’s nothing. He relates, but it’s the first time he’s seen her speaking like that. She suffers the loss of every single soldier and he knows it, but she seems to be doing the same thing he does to be able to get over traumatic events; separating herself from them, cutting the emotional bond between her and them to be able to look at the events as if they were happening to someone else.

“Nekoma?” he manages to croak. He needs water. As soon as possible. “What’re they doing here?”

“It’s war,” she says, pressing her lips into a thin, pale line. “If they win, we’re free. If they lose, they die and we go back to the same old thing… but worse.”

A lot of doctors examine him along the rest of the day. He doesn’t know what time it is and neither of them answera his questions, and he’s starting to feel more and more frustrated with every face that refuses to tell him the truth.

They look at him like he’s a caged beast, ready to chew their throats out. Shouyou understands— if what his mother said it’s true, he managed to kill the commander with his bare hands. All of them know what he’s capable of, especially because he choked the commander to death in front of everyone, and he doesn’t expect to be released any time soon.

His mother comes back to his room what he feels like its aeons later. She unbuckles the straps from around his wrists and his ankles, makes him promise he won’t jump at anyone’s throat. As she unbuckles the strap around his middle, he nods weakly; the knowledge of his mother being afraid of him is almost too much for him to bear it alone.

“Where’s Atsumu?” he asks. His mother gives him a glass of water and he drinks it with the thirst of someone who’s coming back to life, feeling thankful at the pleasantly cool feeling that lubricates his sore, raw throat. “Mom, _please_ , I need to know. I can’t feel him on the other side of the bond—”

“He’s okay,” she calms him down with a smile. He feels wary of it. What if she doesn’t want to tell him the truth? “He’s resting.”

“ _Where_.”

The word is almost barked and his mother startles in her spot. He hates himself for causing her that, but he can’t stop. He’s starting to believe the same thing the big fishes did: he’s a wild, rabid animal.

“A few rooms from here,” she answers, softly. It feels as if she’s trying to calm him down. “He’s been asking about you.”

“What happened to that Alpha?”

Shouyou refuses to use his name. He’s nothing but a beast, just like Shouyou is. He doesn’t deserve a name.

Neither does he.

“Osamu-kun?” she asks, confused. Shouyou nods with a grimace. “He’s recovering from the serum effects.”

_Serum?_

“The _what_.”

His mother explains everything. How she met Osamu a few months ago after he broke his arm in an operation out of the barbed wires. He was a nice kid, nicer than his twin for sure. Natsu started to help her with her job at the time, and he took a special liking to her. He said she was like the little sister he didn’t have.

The big fishes found out about it a few weeks after he got hospitalized. He was supposed to take Atsumu’s mission in the first place, and seeing Atsumu himself hadn’t been able to bring Shouyou back to the Hospital, they decided to use him to get their scapegoat back. Disguising a serum to make Osamu follow their every order as one of his daily medicines, they commanded him to go north until he found Atsumu and Shouyou.

With a tracker hidden underneath the skin of his upper arm, the big fishes followed his path from the nearest areas to Nekoma until his position came close to the Hospital. They sent a troop to take them down; their order wasn’t to kill them but sedate them to take them hostages and throw them all into the underground cells.

Shouyou, on the other hand, was supposed to fulfil his purpose within the walls: be presented as a trophy, as the ultimate weapon against the virus. Now that their scapegoat was back and ready to be murdered in the name of humankind’s future, they only had to make him disappear and deliver the so-called cure. Osamu was to be disposed of and sent to forced labour for the rest of his life, as well as his twin. Atsumu’s punishment was supposed to be the execution, but they decided to spare his life to have a new pair of hands added to the group of Alphas that had broken the rules and had marked an Omega.

Neither of the big fishes expected Shouyou to create the perfect distraction for Nekoma to invade the Hospital. They were already advancing through the facility as the commander gave his speech, but when Shouyou threw himself at him, even the guards were left too surprised to move. As the commander died in between Shouyou’s bare hands, Nekoma took the opportunity to start the invasion and take down whoever tried to block their way.

The body count is still going up as they speak. His mother tells him so. There’s still people out there fighting to defend the agonizing dictatorship, most of them old soldiers that are too used to the system to want it to change.

“What happened to Kenma and the others?” he asks once his mother is done explaining him the situation.

“The prisoners from Nekoma?” his mother questions, tilting his head to the left. “They joined the troops and are taking down the other soldiers.”

“So they’re okay,” he sighs in relief.

“As okay as someone can be in a war,” she assents. She seems sad.

“Can I get out of here?” he asks, frowning. He needs to let these white walls behind as they bring too many bad memories for him to be able to be in this room any longer. He also needs to check up on Atsumu. “Mom, _please_ , I’m gonna go crazy if I stay another second inside of this room.”

His mother purses her lips.

“I’ll go with you.”

His mother opens the door and guides him down the hallway. They bump into a few bodies sprawled on the floor like ragged dolls, puddles of blood extending from the point where the bullets reached them. Shouyou averts his eyes; he’s got no interest in seeing dead people. Not after he killed a human being with his naked hands, doesn’t matter how miserable the commander was.

Ten doors after his room, his mother stops and reaches out towards the handle. She turns the knob and pushes, revealing a room identical to Shouyou’s. It smells like sterilization and bandages as he crosses the threshold, his eyes fixing on the empty bed as she enters right behind him.

“Shouyou?”

Atsumu’s voice comes from one of the corners of the room and it’s like music to his ears. He’s still too sedated to feel him on the other end of the bond, but the fact of _hearing_ his name on his voice makes his knees go weak.

He’s mauled and his skin looks bruised and filled with cuts, just as Shouyou’s, but he doesn’t pay attention to the wounds and bruises. He’s alive, he’s _there_ , in one piece right in front of his eyes. His blood-stained clothes are resting on the bed and Shouyou notice’s he’s wearing a hospital gown, the paper crackling when he stands up from the chair he’s sitting on.

“Atsumu,” Shouyou sighs, a relieved sound as he stumbles towards him. Upon the sight of him, he starts to feel ashamed of everything he did. He killed a _man_ with his bare hands and he _enjoyed_ the feeling of the commander trying to breathe under his palms. He rejoiced on the feeling of his blood coating his fingers. “You’re—” Shouyou swallows around the lump in his throat. “You’re okay.”

Atsumu smiles. His split lip opens and a drop of blood slides down his chin, dripping onto the back of his right hand as he starts to make his way towards Shouyou’s position. Instinctively, Shouyou reaches out and wipes with his thumb the blood, smiling sadly at him.

“Yer alive,” Atsumu sighs, wrapping his fingers around Shouyou’s wrist. They’re pleasantly cool against his naked skin. “I thought— I couldn’t feel ya on the other end of the bond and no one was tellin’ me anythin’ ‘bout ya…”

“No one wanted to tell me about you either,” he answers. “I’m glad you’re okay— I thought you were dead, Atsumu.”

His name weighs on his tongue. He doesn’t feel deserving of saying it out loud.

“I toldja, didn’t I?” he chuckles. How can he chuckle in this situation? “I’ve got someone who’s scared to death of losin’ me. I promised him I was gonna be okay.”

And Shouyou breaks down, _finally_ , after holding in so many things he was starting to choke on them. His knees give out under the weight of his body and Atsumu’s arms catch him before he hits the ground, hugging him against his chest as he cries like the little kid he never got to be. He babbles about how happy he is that Atsumu is alive, that he’s mostly unscratched. That he survived the cell, that he didn’t manage to be thrown to the underground fields for forced labour.

He tells him about the operation room, about the serum they used on Osamu, everything in between sobs and broken words. Atsumu carries him to the bed, crying silently as he goes, and as he sits down on the mattress, he cradles him against him like he’s something precious.

And so he cries on his shoulder until he can’t speak, until he can’t _breathe_ , and Atsumu just holds him, allowing him to say everything he’s wanted to say ever since that dart hit him in the leg. Ashamed of himself, Shouyou tells him how he killed a man— for the second time in his life. There where he expects to find disgust and hatred, he only finds understanding and a feeling of deep sorrow.

“’m so sorry ya had to go through that,” he whispers against his temple. Shouyou realizes his mother is nowhere to be seen. “But yer okay now, I gotcha. Nothin’s gonna happen to ya.”

He isn’t scared of that. At this point, he isn’t scared of anything. It feels like he’s lost some important part of himself after having lived through his worst fears and nightmares. He sincerely doubts he’s ever going to recover the missing parts of what makes him human.

“I love you,” Shouyou sobs. Atsumu tenses against him for a few seconds and then his body relaxes under Shouyou’s, his hands tracing disjointed patterns against his naked back.

“I love ya too,” he answers. It’s more of a fact than a confession, something neither of them had said before, but Shouyou doesn’t mind. He’s happy to hear it nonetheless.

It takes weeks before Nekoma finally announces that the last soldier defending the old regime is dead. Shouyou fights in the last bits of war left and is relieved when Ukai tells him that it’s over. Finally, _finally_ , it’s over. And now that everything is over, he can be reunited with his sister.

Natsu cries upon the sight of him, throwing herself into his arms as he ignores the pain from his wounds and the weakness of his body after weeks of fighting without ever stopping. She sobs against his chest, wrapping her arms around his middle, burying herself into him as she tells him how much he’s missed him, how worried she was.

Shouyou cries too. This is his sister, and she’s okay. Nothing’s gonna happen to her now.

The Alphas imprisoned on the forced labour field are released, as well as those Omegas who were recently thrown into jail for having been marked. The doctors hurry to give them treatment for the septicaemia as they’re reunited with their Alphas, and they disappear into the hospitable floors.

Shouyou is both accused of assassination and treated as a hero, but he doesn’t care about any of those things. Some people demand his imprisonment for having assassinated a _human_ , the biggest crime within the walls of the Hospital Number Five.

He tells them to do whatever they want. He’s accomplished his mission and they’d be doing him a favour if they sent him out of the safe zone.

They don’t punish him.

The men from Nekoma return to their safe zone after saluting Shouyou for his bravery. He grimaces at the sight; he wasn’t brave, he was blood-thirsty. He wanted the commander dead, as well as every single person that fought to defend the regime.

Kenma congratulates him, hugging him before hopping on one of the jeeps. He’s proud but he understands that Shouyou doesn’t feel comfortable with the feeling. And so he doesn’t say anything else about it.

Shouyou apologizes to Sakusa, Ushijima, Oikawa, and Bokuto. He’s not the one at fault for the suffering they went through while they were prisoners of the big fishes, but he feels the need anyway. They dismiss his apology and promise to go back to the Hospital in a few months to check up on him.

The last thing Shouyou sees of the men of Nekoma is the back of the jeeps going away, turning smaller and smaller on the distance. He stares at the clouds of dust that follow them until they disappear into the horizon, his fingers gripping the fence until he feels his fingers go numb.

No more electrified fences to keep them inside during the day.

Months after the war, Takeda Ittetsu —a Beta— is selected as the new leader of the Hospital. His first order is to stop the mandatory tests now that the archives are public and every single person in the safe zone is aware of their immunity, as well as the rules about how Alphas and Omegas were forbidden from _fraternizing_.

The rule about being underground almost all the time is repealed, as they now have to take down the infected still roaming the surface. Takeda asks Shouyou to teach the soldiers to survive out there, to _really_ do it. If they want to be free as humankind was centuries ago, they need to learn everything they can.

He wants to refuse. He’s tired. He wants to spend the rest of his life away from the military.

He does not refuse.

The first time he goes out of the Hospital without being a fugitive tastes like _true_ freedom. He can’t say he has a home to go back to because he doubts that building will ever feel different from a prison, but it’s the best thing he can get. He’s not a scapegoat and he’s not a tool to keep horrible people in the power.

He’s just… Hinata Shouyou. The feisty Omega responsible for assassinating the dictator.

The moon is high on the sky and the summer night feels warm against the exposed skin of his arms. His scars are almost oversensitive as he steps out of the fence, followed by a small group of people. They’re a constant reminder of what he went through as if the memories themselves aren’t enough.

“A yen for yer thoughts?”

Atsumu’s voice has an undertone of a chuckle. He wants to smack him with the stock of his crossbow.

“We’re kinda free, aren’t we?” he asks. His voice is barely above a whisper, but his words prompt a heartfelt bark of laughter out of Atsumu’s lips.

“Kinda?” he echoes, still laughing. “Shouyou, we _are_ free.”

Shouyou smells the rotten flesh before he hears the soft grazing of something moving in between the high grass. The crossbow weighs in his hands as he lifts it, squinting as he takes aim to the head of the shape drawn against the moonlight.

The bolt whistles through the air when he pulls from the trigger, the recoils sending the usual wave of adrenaline through his bloodstream, his heart singing in his chest at the idea of him recovering a part of a past that seems distant and washed up as if it’s been years and not months since the last time he hunted something down.

“As free as it gets with these fuckers still around.”

Atsumu chuckles again.

“Let’s go,” he prompts, smiling at him as he pats the straps around his thighs. The knife shines in between his fingers when he flips it, throwing it a few centimetres up in the air before catching it like he’s trying to show off. “’Samu said that if he managed to kill more infected than ya, ya’ll have to treat him for lunch tomorrow.”

He arches his eyebrows, turning around on the soles of his boots to fix his eyes on Osamu. He waves at him, a mischievous smile curling up the corners of his mouth.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Shouyou snorts. “An _Alpha_? Defeating _me_? Sure.”

Shouyou puts a new bolt on the crossbow and starts to walk into the open space in front of the Hospital Number Five. He hears the infected hissing and growling, smells the rotten flesh just about to fall from their bones.

They’re as free as they can be in this cruel but beautiful world outside of the fence.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha writing go brrrrr. I swear to god, I think my eyes are gonna pop outta their sockets. I’m _so_ tired ksdjfhsdkjf
> 
> Special thanks to Sage for listening to me ranting about this fic!! I’ve been bugging her nonstop for weeks now, I think. I’ve lost track of time. Am I still alive? Am I just a ghost? We might never know.
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_)!


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